


A Billion False Stops (and One True Start)

by Ferrero13



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Falling In Love, M/M, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-05-31 01:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferrero13/pseuds/Ferrero13
Summary: Tony woke up one day to find that his skin was black from neck down. The doctors told him that he either has an extremely large number of soulmates or one soulmate who just won't. Stop.Dying.Chinesetranslation





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [十亿次错误的结束（与一次正确的开始）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882972) by [bunayou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunayou/pseuds/bunayou)



> I said I'd write an AU where Stephen never made a portal off Everest within a few minutes and ends up walking into Tony's dreams until Civil War, and I _have_ started on it, but this fic idea has a better chance of being seen to completion since I'm not expecting it to be novel-length so yeah. This is getting posted first.
> 
> For context, this fic is begins shortly after Civil War and Homecoming, and isn’t entirely canon-compliant with what happens (or was implied to happen) between then and Infinity War.
> 
> Since someone expressed confusion over how soulmarks work in this fic, here’s a short explanation. Marks present when your soulmate is born (or, if you’re the younger one, at birth). Most have countably few of them. When your soulmate dies, the mark corresponding to their age at death glows, fades from black to flesh colour, and becomes scar tissue.

Tony Stark’s morning begins, like everybody else’s, with an alarm that he silences five times before rolling out of bed. Like everybody who owns an en suite, he stumbles into the shower with his eyes shut and emerges fully awake, towel wrapped around his hips. Like every multibillionaire, he contemplates his extensive wardrobe full of bespoke suits and pressed trousers, but, like everybody who works from home, he eventually decides on a black vest and pair of grey sweatpants.

This is where his routine stops having anything in common with anyone else’s.

Every day, Tony Stark gives his pitch black arms a long, annoyed look, then proceeds to cover them completely with a jersey jacket and a thin pair of gloves regardless of the weather. With a longsuffering sigh at his half-black neck, he fastens the jacket all the way up. Pulling a pair of socks onto his (also pitch black) feet, he eyes himself once in the mirror, nods in satisfaction that none of the black is showing, and shuffles out of the room.

Most people don’t ask why he dresses like he’s allergic to the sun. They figure that it’s one of those quirks that extremely smart and extremely high-profile people tend to have in abundance.

They’re not exactly wrong. It _is_ a quirk. But it’s not a quirk of his personality. It’s not even a medical condition.

It’s just that he’s absolutely _drowning_ in soulmarks.

Past experience has taught him that people rarely react well to that. Even Rhodey, whom Tony had known for a few years before telling, spent a handful of days staring at Tony afterwards like his skin would start glowing through his sleeves and collar and gloves at any moment.

By then, it was fifteen years post-presentation and not a single one of his marks had ever glowed or faded. There was no way to tell if half the world was his soulmate or if he just had one who was going to make a habit of dying. Considering the lack of glowing and faded marks, though, Tony’s money was (and still is) on the one soulmate who couldn’t stop dying. After all, if Tony really had enough soulmates to nearly completely cover his skin, it was absurdly unlikely that not a single one of them had died in fifteen years.

Pepper, bless her, only blinked once and continued being her professional self after walking in on him in his workshop with his jacket off because he’d been ignoring her increasingly frustrated voicemails. He'd probably try to date her if he weren't so worried about a potentially catastrophic event that kills his soulmate way too many times. Ever since he became Iron Man, knowledge about things like that tend to make him want to spend all his time developing preventative measures, which of course leaves no time for anything more significant than a fling. And Pepper deserves better than that.

Today is just like any other day. FRIDAY recites a rundown of his schedule (nothing but a full day of tinkering) while he makes coffee and mopes about how quiet life is these days without SHIELD and the Avengers needing something from him every two hours.

“FRIDAY, consolidate unusual events since last update and give me the highlights reel. Prioritise those that may be large-scale security risks.”

“Yes, Boss. At 22:58 last night…” FRIDAY begins, her voice echoing in the emptiness of the common living space at the compound.

God, he really hopes Peter drops by today. He could do with some reassurance that he’s not alone in the world right now.

\---

Peter does come. In fact, he comes at an hour that most teenagers (and occasionally Tony) would deem ungodly—eight in the morning.

Tony is only just getting started with his latest modification to Rhodey’s leg braces when Peter comes bouncing in, talking in that cracking teenage voice of his that Tony has come to associate with uncontrollable verbal waterfalls and enough energy to outcompete an arc reactor. “Hey, Mister Stark! Good morning,” Peter greets as he sets his bag down and pulls out his Spider-Man suit.

“Morning, Underoos. Suit upgrade today?”

“Yeah. I have this amazing idea called ‘permanently disable Instant-Kill’ but I’ll settle for ‘permanently disable the Batman voice in Advanced Interrogation Mode,’” Peter says, looking at Tony hopefully. In the couple of months since Tony offered (and Peter turned down) a position as an Avenger, Peter has made the compound something like his second home. Tony’s not about to turn away the only other person who shares the vast living space with him.

“Didn’t work the last six times, won’t work this time. Also, you’d know how to do that if you didn’t disable the Training Wheels Protocol. Get your ‘man in the chair’ to do that for you,” Tony replies, grinning, then clears his worktable by sweeping everything off to one side. DUM-E raises a fire extinguisher in response to the sudden noise and movement but a quick, pointed look makes him turn away as if disappointed.

Peter shrugs and lays the suit out on the bench top. “Worth a shot.”

“Now, what do you _really_ want that your enabler can’t hack his way into?”

“MJ said something yesterday that really made me think. Why do I only have four limbs? I mean, thematically speaking, having eight would be ideal, so—”

Tony cocks an eyebrow. “So you want four more limbs? You don’t want wings, you want _more limbs_?”

“Spiders don’t have wings.”

“Kid, I appreciate your dedication to the theme, but are you really going to tell me that you prefer having four more legs instead of the ability to fly? Because right now your greatest weakness is wide open spaces and more legs isn’t going to fix that.”

“Okay, but consider this: I’m Spider-Man. It’s my thing.”

“You need a better reason than that. Most of my Iron Man armour is titanium-gold alloy.”

“You didn’t name yourself. I did. I’ve committed myself to it.”

Tony opens his mouth to retort, then closes it. Then he opens it again. “You know what, you do have a point. I’ll bite. But I want you to think very carefully about the functionality of the legs and where in the suit they’ll be stored. I won’t have my name associated with inelegant design.”

“Yes!” Peter cheers. “Okay, okay. So, Ned gave me this brilliant idea and…Mister Stark?” Peter suddenly sounds nervous, and that’s what gives Tony pause.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not trying to look or anything but…your hand is…glowing? I think…?” Peter says, voice climbing an octave with each passing second. He stares at Tony like he’s worried Tony’s going to go into cardiac arrest any second.

Tony looks down. There’s an extremely bright glow shining from under the left cuff of his jacket.

He rips his glove off.

His hand is shining like the goddamn sun.

“FRIDAY,” Tony says, forcing an oncoming tremor away from his voice, “FRIDAY. Doomsday Protocol. And analyse brightness. I want to know how many are going off.”

“Doomsday Protocol initiated. Current brightness suggests that between one thousand and one thousand and five hundred marks were triggered.”

“Mister Stark, are you all right? What am I saying, of course you’re not. Here, take a seat. What do you need? Water? Should I call Happy? Miss Potts?”

Peter sounds like he’s a thousand miles away.

God, no, he can’t fall apart now. He’s spent decades preparing for this. His soulmate (or soulmates, as is more likely when so many marks go off simultaneously) has just died and Tony can’t do anything about it. As his vision starts to narrow and his breath starts coming in short bursts, Tony tries his best to collapse gracefully onto the stool Peter has rolled next to him. “No, no, don’t call anyone. ‘S not a medical emergency. Just…FRIDAY, anything?”

“No recent large-scale incidences detected. However, there is an unaccountable energy surge in Hong Kong. Would you like me to look into that?”

“Do your thing. Let me know if you find something, anything. And Peter?”

“Yes, Mister Stark?” Peter answers immediately, voice unexpectedly close.

Tony takes a steadying breath before looking up and catching Peter’s eyes (they’re too large, too _scared_ , and see, this is why he doesn’t keep people close because he can’t do anything but make them _worry_ about how little he has his shit together once a dozen layers of prevarication fall away). “If you breathe a word of this to anyone I swear to god you will have to build those extra legs yourself,” he grinds out.

“Not a word, sir,” Peter promises earnestly. “I don’t even know what happened.”

“You and me both, kid,” Tony says breathlessly. “Pack your bag. Go home. Nothing’s gonna get done today.”

Unexpectedly, Peter straightens his back and stays right where he is. “No, Mister Stark. You’re not okay. If you’re not going to let me call Happy or Miss Potts then I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Underoos—”

“You know what, Mister Stark? You’re a lot like MJ,” Peter says as he pulls up a chair and settles in next to Tony. His eyes are like steel. Tony could appreciate (and even be proud of) that if Peter had chosen another target. “You’re great at this whole ‘lone ranger’ thing like you are at everything else, but inside you’re just lonely. You keep pushing people away because you’re scared they’ll hurt you. Or maybe it’s the other way around. But I won’t let you keep doing this to yourself.”

“I’m not your pet project,” Tony grumbles, half touched and half irritated.

“No. But you’re my…mentor?” Peter says, as if uncertain. Then he nods with conviction. “Yeah, you’re my mentor. But you’d be a pretty useless mentor if you get too lonely. I’m sure you know that cognitive ability is positively impacted by having some kind of a social life? You can’t be my mentor if you’re not a genius anymore so you need to stop being lonely.”

“That is an incredibly poorly constructed argument, Parker.”

“But it’s a _valid_ argument,” Peter retorts, and Tony has to give him a point there. “Here’s another argument. You asked once if I was happy, right? Well, I will be very upset if you’re lonely. So, to keep me happy, don’t be lonely.”

“That’s emotional blackmail and you know it.” Tony says, mock glaring at Peter. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“You. But the opposite. I just told myself to do everything you wouldn’t do. The grey area got a little too small for me.” Peter shrugs, smiling. “Are you feeling better now?”

Tony groans. “No, no, _no_ , kid. You don’t emotionally blackmail someone and then immediately ask if they’re okay. You’re supposed to maintain the illusion of power.”

“Aunt May asks me if I’m okay all the time and she’s definitely in charge.”

Tony’s about to strongly express how much he misses the days when Peter still looked up to him when FRIDAY chimes in. “Veronica reports faint traces of supernatural activity in Hong Kong as well as the presence of multiple individuals who may have drawn from unknown sources of energy. The readings have been forwarded to the local server.”

“Have them transferred to the suit. Fatalities?”

“None.”

That gives Tony pause. “Huh. And you’re sure this is the only oddity in the last half hour? No nuclear spills, collapsed buildings?”

“There is nothing else on a comparable scale.”

“How many of those magic people are still in Hong Kong?”

“Just two, Boss.”

“All right, I’m going to go get some answers,” Tony says, already calling his armour to him. “Set a course for them. Make real-time adjustments to trajectory to account for any movement. If they split up, track the one with the stronger signature. And alert the Accords Council; I don’t want legal lighting a fire under my ass for this.”

“You can’t go, Mister Stark,” Peter interjects, looking determined. “You’re still shaking.”

“I have to know what’s wrong. A thousand people just died, Peter, but nothing’s showing up. I _have_ to know what happened.”

Peter’s eyes dart quickly to Tony’s hand, which has stopped glowing and is pale for the first time in forty years. The mess of fresh scars criss-crossing his skin makes it hard to tell what colour it is naturally and the sheer number of them scares Tony and, apparently, Peter too. Peter does that thing where he bites both lips with his teeth, then says, “I’m coming with you.”

“Kid—”

“No one should have to go through this alone.”

Tony laughs dryly. “No one should have to go through this _at all_ , but here we are.”

“Good thing I’m here, right?”

Tony sighs. “You’re really good at this manipulation thing. You sure you don’t want to become a professional guilt tripper instead? I could pay you.”

Peter just grins unapologetically and starts to suit up.

“But you’re still not coming,” Tony adds quickly.

“What! Why?”

“I promised your unbelievably hot aunt that I won’t take you out of the country without her permission. You’re a good kid, Peter, but you’re still a kid and you also don’t have a passport. I’ll have FRIDAY keep you updated. You’ll be the first to know if anything goes wrong, all right?”

“But I won’t be able to do anything!”

“Maybe. But you also won’t be able to get injured, and for now that’s my priority. Don’t worry, I’m a big boy. I can handle things myself. Don’t wait up,” Tony says as the faceplate slides shut and he takes off towards Hong Kong.

“Boss, the targets have relocated spontaneously to London. Readjusting course,” FRIDAY says.

Tony only has a moment to register confusion before he’s jerked in another direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're off to see the wizard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Tin Man meets the Wizard (and Beyoncé).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHANGE OF PLANS!!! The marks are the last words. On further thought it’s really morbid if people walk around knowing when their soulmate is gonna die. So yeah. Last words. Dormammu I’ve come to bargain is all over Tony’s hand.
> 
> I've gotten a slightly better feel for where this fic is going, and it's probably going down the 15k road if I'm being realistic. I know the start, I have an idea of the end, but the middle part is just kind of...up in the air. It's entirely possible that I'll drag it out into a 30k slow burn with a side of mutual pining because that's my jam, so yeah, no guarantees.

“Now that we’re sure all Sanctums are secure, can we finally go to sleep?” Stephen asks, exhausted and exasperated. The London Sanctum was a nightmare to clean up, especially as too much time had passed since it had fallen for Stephen to feel comfortable using the Eye to reverse the damage. The New York Sanctum, in comparison, was a walk in the park. Aside from a few broken glass cases and the core ward anchors that Kaecilius destroyed while Stephen was occupied with getting the Ancient One to Metro-General, the Sanctum is largely intact. Standing at the top of the stair hall, Stephen’s lips quirk in tired satisfaction at a job well done. (And what a pleasant feeling it is after the mess of a long, _long_ day.)

Wong shakes his head sternly. Was it only hours ago that Wong laughed? It felt practically prehistoric. “Not yet. Kamar-Taj needs to be briefed on what happened. Where you choose to go afterwards is your choice, but I recommend returning here, _Master_ Strange.”

Stephen presses his lips together. “Look, I know the Ancient One gave me this responsibility but I don’t know anything about protecting a Sanctum. I told her I became a doctor to heal people, and I stand by what I said. I won’t kill.”

“How long did you spend in the Dark Dimension?” Wong asks apropos of nothing instead of saying anything constructive like, oh, assuring Stephen that he’ll assign another Master to the Sanctum while Stephen figures out a way to perform his duty without taking lives.

“I don’t know.”

“Give me a rough estimate,” Wong persists, unfazed.

Stephen is about to say something dry and witty that Wong doesn’t have the proper sense of humour to appreciate when a heavy thunk comes from outside the Sanctum. They immediately stiffen and stride over to the entryway, arms up and weapons ready behind them in case whoever’s outside doesn’t already know about the Mystic Arts. The Cloak of Levitation flares a little preternaturally behind Stephen but he urges it down. (No sense revealing the secrets of Karmar-Taj to people who don’t already know it.) Stephen’s running on nearly a full day of no sleep and he really just wants a break but he’s willing to go down fighting if that’s what it takes to ensure that the not-end-of-the-world that he spent so much time bargaining for sticks for at least a few hours.

Then the doors are pushed open and Iron Man steps into the Sanctum. Stephen wasn’t expecting that. But weirder things have just happened to him and this isn’t even worth batting an eyelash.

“You are trespassing,” Stephen declares immediately. “Why are you here?”

“Tell me what happened in Hong Kong,” Stark says from within his armour. What is with people and not giving Stephen a straight answer today?

Wong steps up next to Stephen. “We are under no obligation to comply with the demands of trespassers. Please leave.”

“We can do this outside if you don’t want me in here. I just need to know what happened in Hong Kong. There were a thousand deaths in less than a second and no evidence of it. I’ll leave once I have an explanation.”

Wong abruptly turns to face Stephen. “You died a _thousand_ times?”

“What, you actually thought I could fight Dormammu and win? I’m flattered, I really am, but even an eidetic memory isn’t quite enough for that. And it’s one thousand, two hundred and sixty two times, by the way. Keeping count is something my perfect recall is, on the other hand, capable of.”

“Hate to break this party up, but what’s a Dormammu and did you really die a thousand times?” Stark interjects.

“Oh, you unbeliever. You fight with gods and a synthetic being and you won’t believe this?”

Stark shrugs. It looks strange when he’s in the armour. “I may not be a doctor but I _am_ a man of science. Dying a thousand times in one second just isn’t possible.”

“Well, _I_ am a doctor. You can take my word for it. So here’s the rundown of what happened—we don’t have time to entertain guests so take it and leave. You’re only getting so much because I don’t want the Avengers darkening our doors if I say no now. Dormammu is an extradimensional being who desired to have Earth as part of his collection. I trapped him in a loop, died a thousand times, annoyed him massively, and struck a bargain so that he’d leave. Are we done?”

“For now,” Stark says curtly after a second or two of contemplation, no doubt thinking about floating cities and Asgardian gods and finding Stephen’s explanation less outrageous than a nine-to-five office worker might.

“Great. The door’s behind you. I trust I don’t have to see you out?” Stephen gestures at the open doors, trying to be as neutrally pleasant as possible when all he really wants to do is open a portal to a bedroom and spend the next day unconscious.

“One more thing,” Stark says, stubbornly not leaving. Stephen’s hands are rising to open a portal to forcefully shove Stark through when Stark’s armour opens up and he steps out of it. “How many more times are you planning on dying? Can we work out a system where you give me prior warning? Because I’d rather not be caught unaware and light up like the Fourth of July again when I have company.”

“What?”

“You’re my soulmate, dumbass,” Stark deadpans, shrugging off his jacket. “Could you try not to die so much next time?”

Stephen can’t help but stare. And stare. And stare some more.

From his neck to his arm, Stark’s skin is a black deeper than the Dark Dimension. He can’t see his legs and honestly he doesn’t think he wants to.

“I think you better invite him in for this conversation,” Wong mutters to Stephen. “Or at least close the doors.”

“Right.” Stephen shakes his head to clear it. “Come in. Let’s not talk about this where just about anyone can listen in.”

“Best idea you’ve had today,” Stark says, stepping further into the Sanctum. Stephen slams the doors behind him shut with a flick of his wrist, which elicits a satisfyingly startled jerk from Stark. Stark then turns to Stephen and Wong and adds, “But one wrong move and I’ll blow your asses into space, alien fighters or not.”

“Threatening us on our property—wise move,” Stephen can’t help but say.

“If there’s one thing I have in excess, it’s money. I can pay bail.”

Stephen’s eyebrows shoot up. “Not something I expect from a proponent of the Accords.”

Stark hums contemplatively. “You’re very well informed for someone who looks like he’s on the wrong side of the development of agriculture.”

“And you’re unexpectedly ill-informed for somebody who’s touted as a genius because this belt buckle is _clearly_ a post-Bronze Age commodity.”

“Stephen, focus,” Wong interrupts.

“Your name’s Stephen, then? Can I call you Stephanie? I knew a Steven once but we’re on _terrible_ terms because he got all the kids in the divorce.”

Stephen ruthlessly throttles the urge to tell Stark exactly how little he cares about the Avengers’ domestic disagreements. Maybe he’ll care more tomorrow when he’s well rested, but he doubts it’ll be enough to let Stark call him ‘Stephanie.’ “You’ll call me Doctor Strange if you don’t want to be escorted out immediately.”

“ _Stephen_ ,” Wong repeats more reproachfully this time.

“Fine. No, you can’t call me Stephanie, but you _can_ call me Stephen. I _insist_. And while we’re doing introductions, this is Wong.”

“Just Wong?” Stark asks.

Wong takes a deep, aggrieved breath. “You two are really made for each other.”

Stark looks genuinely confused. “Okay? So, because you clearly know who I am, we’re done with introductions. Let’s move on to more important things, _dear soulmate_.”

Stephen sighs. God, he really needs a bed. He may not be able to get out of this sudden and uncomfortable conversation, but the least he could do is get out of another engagement. “Wong, you should go to Kamar-Taj ahead of me. This might take a while. Can you take the Eye with you? It’s better protected there.”

As the Cloak lifts away from Stephen’s shoulders when he shrugs it off to remove the Eye of Agamotto, Stephen takes a brief moment to revel in Stark’s look of profound confusion. Utter incomprehension looks good on him. The Cloak floats a little closer to Stark, possibly out of curiosity, and Stephen nearly smiles when he hears an emphatically whispered, “What the fuck?”

Wong, on the other hand, appears to have chosen to ignore Stark completely. “Wise choice. You’ll wear the Eye of Agamotto once you’ve mastered its powers. Until then, best not to walk the streets wearing an Infinity Stone.”

“A what?” Stephen asks as hands the Eye to Wong. The Cloak, apparently finished with its inspection of Stark, drapes itself around Stephen again.

Wong shakes his head like he’s disappointed that he’s forgotten that Stephen didn’t even know about extradimensional threats until today. “You might have a gift for the mystic arts, but you still have much to learn. Word of the Ancient One’s death will spread through the multiverse. Earth has no Sorcerer Supreme to defend it. We must be ready.”

“We’ll be ready,” Stephen assures him. “Just not tonight. Tonight’s agenda very prominently features a bed. And before that an unscheduled and very unwelcome conversation with Stark.”

“Don’t make me regret leaving the two of you alone.”

“Nothing’s going to happen. Master Drumm had the only bed with sheets anyway.”

Wong raises an eyebrow. “I was thinking of something along the lines of the Sanctum burning down. Both of you are capable of great damage, yet neither of you has a history of exercising great patience.”

Stephen feels an unwelcome flush under his collar. “That won’t be happening either,” he says curtly. It’s possible that he sounds a little strangled.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Stephen,” Wong says pointedly as if Stephen would elope with Stark to a private island the moment he turns his attention away from them. Then he heads off towards the gateway to Kamar-Taj, leaving Stephen alone with Stark.

“Hey, don’t knock me till you’ve tried me,” Stark quips, giving Stephen a cocky smile. _Vishanti help him, why is this man his soulmate?_

“Every word out of your mouth reinforces my conviction to not… _try_ _you_. This way. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remain standing for much longer.” Stephen leads the way to a frankly hideous sitting room on the ground floor, since he’s not certain he can make the trip up the stairs to the more comfortable library without completely relying on the Cloak.

“Sentry mode,” Stark tells his armour before following Stephen. The armour whirs to attention, a low glow appearing at its palm. To Stephen, Stark asks, “Long day?”

“Try long years.”

“Time dilation? Time travel? Give me something to work with here. I have more questions than answers.”

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about me than how I ended up in this state, _soulmate_?”

Stark shrugs. “I don’t want you in that capacity because I’m too busy preparing for whatever is going to kill you the next thousand times. You don’t want me in that capacity because you’re a sensible person who won’t settle for a hot mess like me, with an emphasis on hot. The way I see it, this is a perfect setup. We’re obviously not _that_ kind of soulmates, so why fight it?”

“That is surprisingly rational,” Stephen says, and settles his sore body gingerly into an armchair.

Stark takes a seat opposite him without prompting. “Thanks. Everybody comes round to seeing things my way eventually. Glad to see you’re keeping up. And I still want that alert system.”

“I’m not planning on dying again anytime soon, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“God no. I never plan to do any of the things I end up doing either. I want you to let me know when you realise that things are going to hell in a hand basket and that tiny voice in your head tells you that you need to take drastic measures that include dying an absurd number of times for possibly very terrible reasons.”

“How many times am I going to die, exactly?”

Stark shrugs. “I don’t know. Millions? Billions, even?”

Stephen takes a deep breath. Followed by another, deeper breath. Fuck. Hasn’t he died enough already?

“Does it bother you?” Stark asks, seemingly baffled.

“Does the prospect of dying a billion times bother me? Yes, of course it does!”

“I didn’t realise that this was a big deal for you. You’re dressed like you’ve been trained for it with your robes and ancient amulet and creepily sentient cape.”

“That’s because that’s all I’ve done. Trained! I’ve only just finished the sorcerer’s equivalent of basic training!” He’s exhausted and shaken and it’s hard to keep himself together now that he doesn’t have to worry about carrying the fate of the world anymore. There’s a violent shiver working its way through Stephen’s body that feels fundamentally different from how his hands tremble in a way that doesn’t make sense to Stephen. Running a hand through his hair, Stephen closes his eyes and whispers softly, “I only wanted to heal my hands.”

When Stark speaks, it’s quiet with an undercurrent of frustration that doesn’t seem directed at Stephen. “Sorry. I didn’t know. That’s the whole problem, really. I don’t know anything about…”

Stark’s voice seems to grow even quieter with every passing second. Some indeterminable amount of time later, Stephen distantly feels a hand clasp gently around his shoulder. But it’s muted, almost like he’s observing his physical form from the astral dimension. One of Stephen’s own hands is taken and pressed to Stark’s chest, rising and falling as Stark breathes.

“Hey, are you…Strange, deep breaths. Breathe with me.”

“What are you doing?” Stephen asks, trying to pry his hand back.

Stark insistently continues holding Stephen’s hand against his chest. “You’re having an anxiety attack.”

“I don’t have anxiety attacks.”

“Hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’re wrong. Come on, breathe with me.”

“I’m a doctor. I’m sure I can recognise…” Stephen trails off when he finally takes stock of his symptoms. Elevated heart rate, cold sweat, shallow breathing, dissociation, shaking. “Shit you’re right,” he gasps.

“Everybody always comes round eventually,” Stark mutters, repeating himself like he’s grasping at straws for things to say because he doesn’t actually know how to comfort people. Nevertheless, his hand is still a warm weight on Stephen’s shoulder, thumb drawing slow, firm circles into the tightness of Stephen’s trapezius. Under Stephen’s shaking fingers, Stark’s chest rises and falls steadily with reassuring regularity.

Breathe in. Breathe out. “Everybody except the Rogues, you mean,” Stephen says, trying for some levity. Anything to take his mind off how his body has decided to overclock itself for no good reason.

“They’re just…taking their time. Enjoying the view. They’ll, um, see reason. Eventually. I’m sure,” Stark says haltingly. “Look I’m trying to help you. Stop distracting me. Breathe with me.”

Stark’s awkwardness, ironically, is weirdly grounding. “This happened to you before?” Stephen asks. He can’t imagine someone like Stark knowing what to do with an anxiety attack without having first learned from experience. He’s probably too busy building a thousand miniature arc reactors to pick up random bits of medical knowledge. Perhaps someone he’s close to suffers from it?

“Not officially,” Stark says wryly. “But off the record? Not infrequent enough. Tinkering calms me, but I don’t know what works for you so you’re getting the standard run-of-the-mill coping hacks.”

Oh. So Stark’s experience is first-hand. For the first time that night, Stephen looks at Stark and doesn’t see a man in an armoured suit who fights for vague ideals of freedom and peace, who synthesises new elements and wants to call them Badassium, who goes head to head with superhuman adversaries and always comes out on top. He sees somebody who made it out of captivity by the skin of his teeth, a man who was dying and kept it to himself, a man who panics often enough that he’s already found personal ways to cope. Stephen sees all this and he doesn’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t know if he wants to make anything of it. “What a pair we make,” he finally says.

“There has to be a reason why we’re soulmates. Hey, look at it this way, at least we know you won’t stay dead for a while yet.”

“Reassuring.”

“Cut me some slack. I’m new to this whole caring lark thing.” Stark’s grinning now, but his breathing is still deep and regular and Stephen thinks that perhaps Stark isn’t all that bad. A future of dying a billion times aside, things could certainly be a lot worse.

Stephen manages a smile. “No promises.”

“Is this gonna happen every time you, you know…”

“You can say die. I might as well start getting used to the idea.”

“Well. Text me next time it happens. I’ll bring takeout and a bad movie. You do have a TV in here, don’t you?”

Stephen’s only seen a handful of rooms in the Sanctum and none of them looks even remotely close to harbouring twenty-first century technology. “I’ll have to ask Wong.”

Stark levels a considering look at Stephen. “You’re really not kidding when you said you’re fresh out of Hogwarts.”

“Nothing about today makes me want to kid. And can you—” Stephen mimes a zipping motion all the way up to his neck. The sight of Stark’s black skin makes Stephen nauseous. That’s all him—a billion deaths in his future, as if he’s the universe’s favourite crash test dummy.

“What? Oh. _Oh_. Okay, right. Yes. Sure. Sorry.” Stark complies. Stephen’s hand falls away from Stark’s chest when Stark lets go to pull on his jacket. Part of him misses the way Stark’s firm hold stopped his fingers from shaking, but another part is relieved that his moment of weakness is over. The accident has already taken his career—he refuses to let it take anything else from him.

“Is there anything else you want to talk about? Do you want to know your last words?”

“I think I’ll let that be a surprise.”

“You actually have a few of them. Some have already faded.”

“Let me guess,” Stark says, tapping a finger against his lips. “‘Give me a gun’ and ‘Good boy?’”

“‘Give me a gun’ and ‘Might as well.’ The second one is from New York, back in 2012. Don’t worry, there’s still a handful left.” Stephen’s mouth quirks into a tired almost-smirk. “You’ll have a lifetime to guess those.”

“Hilarious, Harry Potter. Your sense of humour clearly suffers when you’re exhausted. I hereby prescribe bed rest for the next 12 hours.”

“Who’s the one with the M.D. here?” Stephen remarks under his breath, getting up with some help from the Cloak. “But you’re right—stop looking at me like that—so now would be a good time to see yourself out.”

“Walk with me?” Stark asks as he gets up.

Stephen rolls his eyes, but his smile stays. “If you insist.”

“I’m serious about texting me, you know. And the takeout too. We might not be that kind of soulmates, but that doesn’t mean we have to ignore each other. Wait, you have a phone, right?”

“Yes, Stark. We even have Wi-Fi.”

“But not a television?”

“You can watch movies on a phone, but you can’t make a call with a television.”

“You can with mine. Want one?” Stark offers with a grin that’s more in line with his public persona than anything else Stephen has seen today. Stephen can’t tell if this upsets him because another person is shutting him out so soon after Mordo or comforts him because _thank god_ the awkward intimacy of before is over.

Stephen stops at the doors and pushes one open. “Don’t bother. I’m not sure we’ll ever use it.”

“If you’re sure you won’t regret missing out on it, then this is me.” Stark says. Then stands there for a long while looking out into the streets of New York.

“Do you need a goodbye kiss before you leave?”

Stark drags his gaze up slowly from Stephen’s toes until it stops, unwaveringly, on Stephen’s eyes. A slow slide of tongue across Stark’s bottom lip and a comically exaggerated raised eyebrow, however, make it impossible for Stephen to take it seriously. “I won’t turn one down.”

Stephen huffs and he’s smiling again before he even realises it.

“Here’s my number.” Stark presses a business card into Stephen’s shaking hands. “Text, don’t call. I like to put people on hold.”

“You carry these around in your sweatpants?”

“What can I say, people want my number at all hours of the day.”

“That makes me feel so special.”

“My personal number’s on the back.”

Stephen blinks. “That does make me feel special.”

Stark looks vaguely bashful, but he’s refusing to meet Stephen’s eye now so he can’t tell for sure. Stark takes one slow step down the front steps, then another, until he’s out on the sidewalk. “It’s the least I can do for a soulmate who protects us from extradimensional evil aliens at great personal cost.”

“Mention that again and I’ll have to use your number right now.”

Stark’s shoulders tighten visibly. He pivots around to give Stephen a contrite look. “Right. Sorry. I’m only smooth when I’m wearing a thousand bucks.”

“I actually like you better this way. A thousand bucks you reminds me of how much of an asshole I was and you can imagine how uncomfortable that is.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Stark smiles, small and genuine. Stephen has never really thought about what his soulmate would be like, but someone who actually cares, even a little, is probably better than he deserves after being so selfish his entire life. “Come on FRIDAY, we’re going home.”

The Iron Man armour that’s been standing guard in the entryway this whole time clunks over to Stark and opens up in a magnificently coordinated display of moving parts that is equally mesmerising in reverse.

“See you around, Strange.”

With a showy salute that the Cloak returns without Stephen’s permission, Stark takes off. Stephen stands at the doors, eyes following Stark as he arcs away from the Sanctum and into the skyline. As soon as Stark vanishes into the darkness, Stephen turns and heads back in.

If a man who helms a global effort to hold enhanced individuals responsible for the destruction left in their wakes is meant to fit into Stephen’s life, perhaps there’s hope for turning Stephen’s life around yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two men are too jaded and not in the right head space to be ready for a relationship from the get go. Which is why I said a slow burn is a definite possibility. *shrug*


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Strange becomes Stephen and Stark becomes Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody tried to estimate how old Stephen is [here](https://ssironstrange.tumblr.com/post/175851872725/wait-how-tf-is-he-3200-explain) and wow I have such respect. I've gone back to fix some times (but not all) to fit more closely with this well-thought-out analysis.

‘Might die.’

It takes a second for Tony to realise who the text is from.

“FRIDAY, save sender as ‘Asclepius.’ Text back to ask if Szechuan is all right.”

“Is that Doctor Strange?” Peter asks from across the workshop. It’s Saturday and Peter has come over again, earlier this time and rattling off ideas like he’s trying to distract Tony from what happened last week.

“Yeah. You might want to put on a pair of tinted goggles if you’re staying.”

Tony told Peter about Strange after he returned to the compound from Strange’s haunted house on Bleecker Street. Peter figured immediately after Tony stepped out of his suit that a thousand people hadn’t actually died because Tony didn’t look completely gaunt when he got back. And so Peter’s adorably gifted mind went straight to one soulmate dying a thousand times without staying dead and he asked if Tony’s soulmate was going to join the Avengers.

To which Tony replied with an emphatic no.

All evidence so far points to Stephen being overwhelmed by what appears to be a new responsibility thrust upon him with minimal training for the actual job. It would be a while yet before Tony feels comfortable piling more responsibility on him.

But he did tell Peter a handful of things about Strange, including the scars on his hands and the distinguished streaks of grey hair on his temples. (Seriously, why doesn’t Tony’s hair grey in such a nice pattern? Instead he’s got random white strands in his facial hair. His _facial hair_.)

Tony himself doesn’t understand how Stephen ended up in a teleporting, time-manipulating cult after losing his high-flying medical career to a horrible car accident, but he intends to ask whenever they next see each other. (So Tony looked up Doctor Stephen Strange, sue him. Strange was probably as accomplished in neurosurgical techniques as Tony himself is at…well, everything else, including not being ready for a serious relationship. Another area where they match.) It just didn’t feel right interrogating the man after he’d somehow died a thousand times at the hands of an extradimensional entity, even if Tony was (and still is) itching to make sense of it all.

“I can stay?” Peter asks, surprised and hopeful.

Tony shrugs. Peter was right—he is kind of lonely. With Pepper and Happy busy with work and Rhodey busy with therapy, Tony can’t find it in himself to turn Peter away. It helps, of course, that Peter has such compelling puppy dog eyes and he’s basically the son Tony never dared to dream of having.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Are you done with that wrench?”

“Heads up, Mister Stark.” Peter tosses the wrench over five parked cars and Tony doesn’t have a heart attack only because he knows that Peter’s more likely to underestimate his strength and wedge the wrench into the opposite wall than drop it on a car. And Tony’s also trying to not have heart attacks because his heart has already taken enough damage, so there’s that too.

“I’m wrapping up soon. You good on your own?”

“Yeah. DUM-E can take care of me. He’ll keep me from accidental self-immolation.”

Tony looks up sharply from Rhodey’s prosthesis to see Peter grinning from ear to ear, that precocious little prick. “Those are two of the single most terrifying sentences I’ve heard in my entire life. Keep U and Butterfingers close by too, for my peace of mind. And also for the continued existence of this building.”

“I will be monitoring Peter’s wellbeing as well, Boss,” FRIDAY volunteers cheerfully.

“Good girl,” Tony praises to a background chorus of indignant yelling (Peter) and beeps (DUM-E).

\---

Tony knocks once on the doors of Strange’s magical museum and they open without fanfare.

“Strange?” Tony calls out into a bafflingly empty entryway. “Wong?”

He waits a little longer just in case this is some sort of magical trap. Then he takes a tentative step through the doors. When nothing shoots him or trips him up, he shuts the doors behind him and calls out again, “Strange? I got your text about coming back here. This place is creepy enough without you playing hide-and-seek.”

When Tony finally reaches the bottom of the stair hall after shuffling very, very slowly to it, something large and red comes flying down and wraps firmly around him.

“What the—” Tony yells. He’s halfway to calling his armour to him when he realises that he’s seen it before. “Aren’t you Strange’s cape? What are you…!”

A handful of terrifying seconds and the fastest tour of a house later, Tony is deposited in what looks like the lovechild of a library and a museum. The walls are stacked high with books and the floor space is occupied by unending glass cases containing an eclectic selection of objects. A closer look at how the cases are organised reveals that there are more cases than should reasonably fit in the room, which makes Tony wonder if there’s any dimension that Strange’s cult magic cannot manipulate.

Once Tony is steady on his feet, the cape releases his arms and legs and nudges him in the direction of a table that Tony swears wasn’t there just a second before. Behind it is a large circular window with a symbol that looks like it might be important.

“Where’s Strange?” Tony asks. He feels a bit silly talking to a scrap of fabric but his soulmate apparently makes a career of dying so really he should learn to get used to it.

The cape lifts a corner and jabs at somewhere behind Tony.

“I didn’t actually die so you really didn’t have to come,” Strange says as he comes up the stairs. He looks slightly ruffled but not as much as last week. The cape swoops over to Strange and settles on his shoulders after giving Tony a quick pat. “But thanks for bringing food.”

“I got some for Wong as well, if he’s somewhere in this haunted house that doesn’t obey the laws of physics.”

“This is a Sanctum Sanctorum—I’ll thank you not to refer to it as a haunted house again. Wong’s in Kamar-Taj right now but I can call him over.” Strange pulls out a phone that’s probably seen better days and appears to fire off a quick text. “This looks like way too much food for two people anyway.”

“You have a sentient cape and doors that open on their own. It’s haunted. And it’s a house. Therefore, haunted house. What’s Kamar-Taj? You mentioned it last time I was here. Is that wizard headquarters?”

“We prefer the term ‘sorcerers’ or, if you’re feeling particularly mouthy, ‘Masters of the Mystic Arts.’” Strange ambles over to Tony and takes a bag from him to spread the dishes out on the table. “And yes, you can think of Kamar-Taj as our headquarters. Wong is the head librarian there so he doesn’t spend a lot of time here in the New York Sanctum.”

“Wait, if this is the New York Sanctum, are there buildings like this in other places?”

“There’s one in London and another in Hong Kong. They form a planet-wide shield against mystical threats. So as you can see, they’re far more important than any _haunted_ _house_. Do you need dishes? Utensils?”

“There are chopsticks in there. But a couple of plates would be good. Are we really eating in this showroom?”

With a wave of his hand, Strange conjures a stack of plates and a handful of forks and spoons anyway. A couple of armchairs slide over as well, weaving deftly between glass cases with such speed that Tony almost has a heart attack again. God, Tony really needs a new intern-spider-son and doctor-wizard-soulmate. The ones he has right now are fucking health hazards. Which is ironic because Peter cares more about Tony’s health than Tony himself does and Strange is a doctor.

“I’ve discovered that the library receives the most sunlight out of all the rooms in the Sanctum, though that isn’t saying much since the whole building is very poorly lit. But we might as well take advantage of it with such great weather outside. And I’m sure you can be trusted not to break any of these cases—some of these relics are cursed. You really don’t want to mess around with them.”

“You’re really not helping your case here,” Tony says, shaking his head and laughing. He tentatively takes a seat in one of the chairs before relaxing fully when it doesn’t send him flying down the stairs. “Chopsticks?” he asks when Strange reaches for the fork.

Strange raises both hands (and an eyebrow) and Tony winces when he sees the thick ropes of scarring he noticed last week. The fork in Strange’s hand trembles—not violently, but enough to throw the possibility of chopsticks out the window and kick it for good measure.

“Right. Car accidents and injured hands,” Tony says with a grimace.

“I see you’ve looked me up. I can’t blame you—I _am_ very interesting,” Strange says, smirking, then scoops a portion of Kung Pao chicken onto his plate. Tony doesn’t appreciate the teasing but he _is_ grateful that Strange isn’t offended. “The injury is inconvenient but I’ve learned to work around it. Go on, what were you saying before?”

Tony grabs a pair of chopsticks and starts loading his plate as well. “The more I learn about this place, the more it sounds like a haunted house from a B-movie. Are the London and Hong Kong ones like this too? Badly lit and overflowing with cursed relics?”

“If you play nice and call them Sanctums, you might just get to see them.”

“You gonna show me around yourself?”

“I don’t get days off. You’re going to have to convince Wong to find a temporary replacement Master for the Sanctum, but good luck with that. I’ve tried. If the argument that I didn’t even know this job existed until literally an hour before I was appointed didn’t work, then I don’t know what will.”

“Let’s say I convince him, because I’m awesome like that. How are we getting there? Teleportation? Tracking you last week was tricky because you kept disappearing and reappearing in completely different places.”

“Close, but not quite.” Strange smirks, and Tony immediately knows he’s not going to like what’s coming next.

With a shower of yellow-orange sparks, the floor opens up suddenly and Tony’s stomach lurches into his throat. The world around him blurs to coloured streaks as Tony starts freefalling with his chair, breath punched out of his chest. Thankfully, before Tony has time to properly panic, it’s over.

“Never, and I mean _never_ , do that again,” Tony gasps, doubling over. He reaches blindly for the table and grips it so tightly that his knuckles turn white, chopsticks digging uncomfortably into his palm. He’s safe now. He’s on solid ground. He’s not in a portal. He’s on Earth. Yeah, he’s in a god-awful building that probably hasn’t been renovated in a century and is likely as structurally sound as a wad of tissues, but it’s not the end of the world. He’s safe. “It’s a good thing your magic is orange. You’ll have a full blown anxiety attack on your hands otherwise.”

“Shit, is that your trigger?”

“Yeah, New York, portals, freefalls, and me don't mix well,” Tony says breathlessly.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise. Here, give me your hand. You know the drill—breathe with me,” Strange says. Even though most of his brain is trying to convince his body that the world is ending _better pump yourself full of adrenaline you useless sack of water_ , the irony of how their situation has been reversed is not lost on Tony. “What do you need? I can get you some scrap metal to work with. Which tools do you want?”

“No, I’m fine. Or I will be. Just…give me some time.”

“I’m going to talk to you. I want you to focus on my voice. Feel free to talk back. Can you do that?”

“I’m panicking, not brain dead,” Tony grits out.

“That is questionable, even when you aren’t panicking. BARF, really?” Strange says, and it’s so unbelievably weird that he manages to convey so much snark while keeping his voice level and his breathing even. Is this what they teach in magic school? Because Tony would like to sign the fuck up for that. And if Strange’s calm after the trauma of last week is any indication at all, Tony would also benefit from classes in dealing with impending doom.

“I’d like to see you build it. Shut up and talk.” At the rate they’re going, Tony might be back to normal before Strange even starts talking.

Strange shrugs, which Tony feels under his palm more than sees, then finally says, “When I first arrived at Kamar-Taj I mistook Master Hamir for the Ancient One, which is ridiculous now because Master Hamir had so much facial hair you could use it to make wigs and the Ancient One was as bald as a baby,” Strange rambles. “And you’ve met Wong, so you know how the only expression he’s capable of is bored condescension. I tried, for _months_ , to make him laugh and he straight up told me that people only laughed at my jokes because they worked for me. Can you believe the man? I did get him to laugh last week, though, so joke’s on him.”

Tony barks a short, slightly hysterical laugh. He can kind of see why some higher entity would think they’d be great together. Two broken men who use self-deprecation to make others feel better? Tony can work with that, except now he just really wants to build stabilising gloves for Strange because that’s what Tony does—build things for people. He’s given more to people who deserved less; he can certainly spare a couple grand to develop something for the Master of a Sanctum Sanctorum, whatever the hell that job entails. It certainly sounded impressive enough when Strange described it.

That Strange smiles when Tony laughs only endears him even more to Tony. With all of his friends above the age of old-enough-to-not-have-a-curfew-I’m-looking-at-you-Peter-did-you-tell-May-you-came busy with work or physiotherapy, Tony’s life has been a little short on people looking at him fondly for doing next to nothing lately. Peter, even though he’s nowhere near a proper level of intimidated by Tony anymore, is still a teenager and teenagers rarely look at anything fondly. It’s an acquired expression.

“I fought a zealot last week. His name was Kaecilius and he was much more experienced than I was,” Strange continues, apparently pleased with the effect his words have on Tony. He gestures at a relic set on a table nearby. “I brandished this right here—the Brazier of Bom’Galiath—at him in the middle of it. I’ll never forget what happened next.”

Strange falls silent like he’s just chosen the most irritating time to enjoy a memory without letting Tony in on the fun. Since no one has ever accused Tony of patience anyway, instead of just waiting, Tony leans in and prompts impatiently, “What did it do to him?”

Strange’s eyes cut suddenly to Tony’s and the corners of his lips quirk upwards. “Nothing. That was also the first time I had ever set foot in the Sanctum, so I didn’t know anything about any of these relics or how they worked. I’m only alive right now because the Cloak of Levitation liked me.” The cape—cloak—puffs up as well as a scrap of fabric could when it’s mentioned (and a sentient glorified tablecloth will never not be weird, but it doesn’t seem dangerous so Tony can deal with it). Strange runs a hand down its collar exasperatedly.

Tony laughs properly this time. “Is your idea of talking me down telling me embarrassing stories about yourself in wizard school? Because I gotta say, it’s working. We can trade stories later.”

“If I wanted embarrassing stories about you, I could pick up any tabloid magazine,” Strange says, but he’s smiling too and it’s the kind of smile Rhodey sometimes gives him when they’re throwing insults they don’t mean at each other to take their minds off a heavier topic so Tony gives him a free pass.

Strange releases Tony’s hand and sits back, and his smile doesn’t falter as he watches Tony gather the last frayed edges of himself together on his own like he’s proud of Tony for being a functional human being. It must be a hangover from when he was a doctor. Tony can’t rationalise it any other way because functional isn’t even close to what people expect from him. They want the billionaire, they want Iron Man, they want suave smiles and pizazz and a new StarkPhone every year.

They don’t want Just Tony, who likes Kung Pao chicken and makes things to avoid anxiety attacks. Who lost the Avengers to Captain America even when he was (and is) trying to make things better.

Strange said last week that he prefers Tony without his suit and that made Tony nearly have a meltdown on Bleecker Street in broad daylight because clearly his ears were also going the way of his heart if he’s hearing these things without the influence of alcohol. But Strange’s smile was soft and, despite the hole in him in the shape of the Avengers, Tony believed him.

It must say something about how lonely Tony is when all it takes for him to want to befriend somebody is a well-meaning smile. They’ve only met twice and yet Tony already counts Strange among his top 11 favourite people behind, in no particular order, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Peter, Harley, Vision, his three disaster bots DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers, and FRIDAY. And there’s another discourse somewhere in there about having more meaningful relationships with artificial intelligences than he has with most other human beings but that’s for another day.

(A voice whispers that Strange would drop him like a hot pocket like Bruce did if given the chance because being Tony’s friend is emotionally draining, but Tony’s trying not to think too hard about it.)

It also helps that Strange isn’t impressed by Tony at all.

He’s nice, sure, but not to the extent of being sycophantic. It’s possible that part of it is Tony’s fault because he showed up last week when Strange looked just half a heartbeat away from collapsing from exhaustion—it’s hard to be in awe of anybody once they’ve stood between you and badly needed sleep. But it’s also possible that Strange was never Tony’s fan either since their expertise didn’t overlap much until Tony came up with BARF.

Speaking of which…

“Do you want a go with BARF?”

“To clear the trauma of a few years of dying? I doubt any technology, even yours, is capable of handling that kind of stress. I read your paper back when it came out—it’s fascinating stuff, but the technology is still in its infancy.”

“The offer is open if you ever change your mind. Maybe clear a couple of cycles at a time.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Please do. I need more test subjects to establish statistical significance.”

“Oh, I see how it is now. Just taking advantage of your local traumatised sorcerer to pad your list of publications.” Strange is still smiling—this time in the way only someone who has also aggressively attempted to expanded his publications portfolio at some point does—and Tony gives himself a point for not chasing another person away. Yet. Which actually bodes well because generally the only people willingly put up with him for more than a handful of minutes at a time want either a contract with Stark Industries or a private tour of his bedroom.

(Not that anybody has ever gotten a private tour of any bedroom alone with Tony. Everybody else can slap on a couple of skin patches to cover their marks, but oh no not Tony. Tony might as well put on a jumpsuit, at which point sex becomes impossible. So really, Tony has no idea where anybody got the idea that he has a different woman between his sheets every night or why everybody and their fourth cousin twice removed bought into it.)

Tony really likes Strange. If he hasn’t already decided to keep him around to ensure that the man doesn’t descend into incurable madness after his deaths, he would definitely be doing so now.

Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey are great, but none of them understand the mania of constant work and inspiration and productivity highs that comes hand in hand with the sort of personality required to even want to attend grad school. Tony can’t just turn it all off. After all, there’s a reason why he didn’t just stop at one PhD. Peter and Harley aren’t far along enough in their education to even apply to grad school, Vision is practically a newborn, and the bots have enough on their plates just making non-toxic smoothies. FRIDAY comes the closest and Tony loves her but she doesn’t need to innovate or write papers to remain relevant so the sense of urgency is all lost on her.

But Strange understands. Their lives are remarkably similar despite some reverse rearrangements of priorities—Strange went from ‘Do no harm’ to ‘Try to do no harm but if someone stabs you wave a brazier threateningly at them,’ while Tony’s journey started with ‘Merchant of Death’ and is now going down the path of ‘World peace and green energy and hippies galore’—but overall their outlook and their MO strike him as almost like looking in a mirror.

“Are you speaking from experience?” Tony asks even though he already knows the answer is yes.

“I’ve made peace with who I used to be. You’re not the only one I like better not wearing a thousand bucks.”

“That’s an odd way to say you’ve given up Armani for dollar store cosplay.” Tony waves a hand broadly at Strange’s robes.

Strange rolls his eyes. Or, he tries, but he’s too busy fighting down a suddenly indignant cloak to succeed. (Seriously, how is the cloak emoting? Is Tony hallucinating?) “You should apologise to the Cloak if you’re coming round more often. I’d enjoy watching it try to smother you, but I don’t think you’ll find it as entertaining.”

Tony forgets words for the brief second it takes to realise that Strange has more or less given him a standing invitation to his home full of dangerous, priceless relics.

Then his brain kicks into high gear and he blurts out a quick apology that’s mostly sincere. Mostly. (Because really, is nobody going to address the fact that the flying picnic blanket is sentient? Isn’t the moral of the second Harry Potter book to not trust a thinking object if you can’t see where it keeps its brain if you don’t want to have your life force sucked out by a serpent-controlling dark lord in a secret underground chamber full of snake-themed motifs?)

“Don’t worry too much about it. The Cloak is fickle.”

“As long as it doesn’t try to strangle me in my sleep, I’m good.”

“Now that you mention it, I have heard that the Cloak once…” Strange trails off with a sly grin.

“Reign your bullfighting cape in, Strange!”

“Why do you call me that?”

“What, Strange? That’s your name. I know it’s odd, but that’s how surnames work.”

“Outstanding, you’re so creative. I haven’t heard that one before,” Strange deadpans. “No, I meant that I allowed you to call me Stephen last week.”

“Ah. Well you seemed really against it, and despite what Happy thinks, I do have enough self-preservation instinct to want to avoid angering a wizard whose powers are so great he eclipses even Christ himself when it comes to death and resurrection. But if you’re dying to hear your name in my Broadway-worthy voice, I will gladly oblige, _Stephen_.”

“Please don’t say my name like that ever again, _Anthony_ ,” Strange— _Stephen_ —says, smile curling sickly sweet on his lips.

“Wow. That’s giving me flashbacks. Only my father ever called me that, and even then only when he was pissed at me.”

“Do you need me to stop?” Str-Stephen asks, suddenly in what Tony is starting to think of as Doctor Mode. It makes Tony take his question seriously now when he never did before with Rhodey.

He’s known for some time that he doesn’t want the name that his mother chose for him to be synonymous with anger and disappointment and never being good enough for his father, but he’s never felt safe enough to try to break the association. However, here and now, with a doctor who knows how to calm him down around, perhaps Tony can start. This past decade has been a whirlwind of changes, so what’s another?

“Don’t bother,” Tony finally says. “I should learn to stop associating it with him at some point anyway.”

“I’ll be sure to save it for especially happy occasions for maximum disassociation effectiveness,” Stephen says. Then, after a beat, he adds, “Tony.”

If Tony breaks into a smile, it’s because the prospect of finally unlearning a conditioned negative response to his own name is a huge relief and definitely not because he’s just found the eleventh member of his ragtag group of favourite people (and AIs).

“Thanks, Stephen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wong is busy with library stuff but he's keeping an eye on the permanent portal to the New York Sanctum from the library at the same time because tbh Stephen and Tony in a room together can only go two ways with very little middle ground lol.
> 
> Also, this is definitely going to be longer than 15K (assuming I finish it).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stephen answers some of Tony's questions and gives a very poor tour of the Sanctum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the previous chapter, because it had gotten too long for them to be posted together.

It doesn’t take long for most of the food to be consumed. Practising sorcerers tend to require more energy than the average person, after all, and Stephen has just finished battle with someone called Colàbron who wanted to feed off the ‘fount of psychic wine’ from Earth’s ‘pulsing apes and servant creatures’ by trapping Colàbron in a dimension of infinite loops. (Even without the Eye, it seems that Stephen might be relying on looped time for as long as he refuses to kill. Well, better a one-trick pony than dead and without principles.)

They keep a small portion of everything for Wong, who really shouldn’t be as busy as he claims since Stephen is the only one who actively borrows from the library (“It’s not borrowing if you take them without my permission Stephen. That’s called stealing.” “It’s borrowing because I return them.”).

“Care to show me around?” Tony asks, dabbing his mouth with a paper napkin. “If I’m coming over more often, I should at least know where the toilet is. But feel free to show me the most dangerous artefacts too.”

Stephen narrows his eyes at the far too innocent expression on Tony’s face.

“So I know what to avoid, of course," Tony adds quickly.

“That was an extremely poor save.”

“It doesn’t have to be a save if you trust and believe in my goodwill.”

“I don’t doubt your goodwill. I doubt your ability to keep trouble from finding you,” Stephen says as he clears the table with a sweep of his hand. He points at the dirty napkin that Tony is crumpling up. “Do you still need that?”

“What? Oh, no. Do your thing.” Tony holds up the napkin and Stephen vanishes it. “That’s a very handy trick, by the way, making trash disappear. Where does it all go? Or are you breaking the first law of thermodynamics?”

“Most books we have are vague about anything smaller than a mote of dust.” Tony deflates and that, in stark contrast with his excitement from before, pushes Stephen to give the best explanation he’s put together so far instead of changing the topic. “As best as I can explain in less mystical terms, matter is broken down into energy and spontaneously redistributed thinly across this dimension so there isn’t crater in its place. You’re the one with the physics doctorate here—I’m sure you can do the math and tell me exactly how much of New York we’ll have destroyed with your napkin.”

Tony looks, for a moment, like he’s about to be awarded a Nobel Prize on his birthday while simultaneously having found the solution to the millennia-long question of whether the chicken or the egg came first. (It’s the egg. The egg came first. There were amniotic eggs before there were chickens. Stephen will go down defending this, but everyone else is entitled to their—incorrect and uneducated—opinion.)

“Can I take readings?” he asks almost like he’s demanding, his eyes alight with almost manic fire. “I don’t understand it and it makes no sense but this is amazing! I want to know everything.”

“Didn’t you say that you are a man of science?”

Tony shrugs. “Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke.”

“And you think that we have a machine up our sleeves that vaporises matter and folds space?”

“Of course not. I don’t know _how_ you’re doing it, but nobody knew how penicillin worked either.”

“So you think _biology_ is the technology?” Stephen asks, a little incredulous but mostly encouraging because it’s been so long since someone talked any kind of science with him, even science with a worldview he doesn’t understand. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Exactly. There’s something about the human body that we don’t know about and I’m not letting Hammer Industries get their greasy, grabby, government’s pet hands on those secrets. We could be looking at a completely new field of energy here, Stephen.”

“When you put it like that, how can I possibly refuse your touching proposal to study my spells like a dissected cadaver?”

“Come on, even you must want to know how this works. Nobody gets a PhD without a thirst for knowledge. You even thought about it hard enough to come up with a hypothesis!”

“It does intrigue me,” Stephen admits. Tony’s enthusiasm is infectious and, by Agamotto, Stephen _does_ want to know how all these fit in with his understanding of science as well. Just because he has ‘surrendered to the river’ doesn’t mean he has to be ignorant of what makes it flow as well. He has spent too long trusting in empirical evidence to give up the opportunity of applying the same philosophy to the mystic arts. “And our library is sorely lacking in books that aren’t scribed by fifteenth century monks.”

“That’s the spirit! We could co-author the first scientific primer of magic.”

“Mystic Arts,” Stephen corrects absentmindedly. It does have its appeal. Stephen has felt slightly off-kilter since coming to Kamar-Taj, where he’s only received knowledge without producing anything.

“Mystic Arts,” Tony concedes, possibly already too caught up in planning the undoubtedly florid prelude of their hypothetical primer to notice that he’s given up a perfect opportunity to take a crack at how pretentious ‘mystic arts’ is.

“As thrilled as you are, none of your technology is here now. I’m afraid this will all have to wait.”

“I can do that,” Tony says as he bounces on his feet, clearly no capable of ‘doing that.’

“In the meantime here is the toilet,” Stephen says, pushing on the handle of a door they have walked up to while Tony was lost in the blissful prospect of making known models of the universe even more complicated than they already are by introducing an additional field of energy. That will either set back the development of a unifying theory by at least a handful of decades or be the key to finally solving it. Regardless, the resulting upset in the scientific community would be very satisfying to watch.

Tony blinks out of his haze to look around the washroom. “This is surprisingly normal.”

“What were you expecting?”

“A sea creature in a bathtub and a toilet powered by alien technology?”

“Please don’t even joke about it. Jinxes are apparently real—Maxim’s Primer, chapter 4. The Sanctum’s floor plan is mutable, by the way, so I wouldn’t put much stock in remembering its exact location.”

“Then why are you showing it to me?”

“You asked to see it.” And Stephen also doesn’t want his only social interaction this week aside from Wong to end so soon. The Sanctum is large, and Stephen is only one man. “There are others on floor below opposite the bedrooms and on the ground floor across the foyer from the permanent gateway to Kamar-Taj.”

Tony shuts the toilet door, then leans forward to inspect the engravings. They don’t actually mean anything unless one knows the exact sequence to activate them, but even then it’s only a self-cleaning spell. “Does this gateway look like a gaping maw of death and destruction à la New York 2012, but smaller?”

“It looks like a door,” Stephen says flatly. “Because it is a door.”

“…that’s it? A door?”

“What? We’re not Disneyland. Form over function is overrated.”

“Says the man who accessorises with rings and sashes and a cloak.”

“As I said, form over function. The ring opens portals, the sash extends to frankly excessive lengths, and you already know the Cloak.”

“Boy do I know the Cloak. You’re the worst tour guide ever, by the way,” Tony says to the Cloak, which flaps its edges like its offended. “But I forgive you because your taste in colours is excellent.”

“It’s a Cloak. It doesn’t have taste in colours. It doesn’t even have eyes to see colours with,” Stephen says exasperatedly. The Cloaks smacks him but doesn’t fly off in a huff so Stephen figures it isn’t really unhappy with him.

“But it also hears and understands what we say without ears or a brain.”

“Perhaps its brain is in another dimension?” Stephen offers.

“You’re the resident wizard and neurosurgeon. You tell me,” Tony says, grinning, like he knows exactly how incapable Stephen is of telling him.

He walked right into that one.

Something beeps. Tony pulls out his phone. “I need to head back soon. Show me that gateway on the way out?”

“Are you sure?” Even with Stephen’s perfect recall, some memories stick more than others. Tony, gasping and tense and shaking, is one of them.

“Have you heard of me? Ask Pepper and she’ll tell you that I’ve never made a good decision in my entire life. And if it’s just a door, I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Tony cracks his knuckles and rolls his neck so they make some truly horrifying popping sounds that Stephen knows are harmless but are so loud that they nevertheless set off his potential-medical-problem-o-meter. “Bring it on.”

Tony is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. Stephen’s money is on a mix of prodigious quantities of both. He really shouldn’t accede to Tony’s request for reasons including Tony’s mental health and Wong’s severe face of disapproval, but Stephen isn’t a psychologist and Wong’s disapproval stopped meaning so much after the hundredth book Stephen borrowed without asking (“Stealing, Stephen.”) from the library. “Follow me. Don’t touch anything.”

“So how does an award-winning neurosurgeon become a wizard in six months anyway?” Tony asks as their footsteps echo in the long hallways of the Sanctum. “How did you end up here?”

“Here as in the New York Sanctum or—”

“Here as in sorcery.” Tony waves his hands at Stephen’s entire body. “With your magic carpet and orange portals and post-Bronze Age belt buckle.”

“Some people turn to Jesus in their times of crises. I turned to Jonathan Pangborn.”

“Jonathan Pang…what? Is he a famous neuroscientist who also moonlights as a wizard?”

“He had a complete C7-C8 spinal cord injury, should’ve never been able to walk again. I found him playing basketball. The breadcrumbs he dropped led me to Kamar-Taj.”

Tony’s brows knit together. “What’s so different about his injury that he could fix his paralysis but you can’t even steady your hands?”

“He settled for his miracle,” Stephen says wryly, remembering Pangborn’s exact words. “I would’ve, too, if given the opportunity just a week ago.”

“Then why didn’t you? Fix your hands and go back? What changed?”

“The same things that changed for you after Afghanistan, I imagine. A new perspective on the value of life and the knowledge that you could do more in a different capacity.”

“I was a warmongering weapons manufacturer—I had nowhere to go but up. You were a _doctor_. You were already doing so much. A dozen other people can guard this crumbly building, but there will only ever be one Stephen Strange, M.D., inventor of half a dozen surgical techniques.”

Stephen pauses. It’s been a while since he thought of his career beyond an all-consuming need to claw his way back into the operating theatre. Coming up with techniques was the last thing on his mind. Christine had tried to persuade him that consulting (among other desk jobs) wasn’t a downgrade, but Stephen’s worth was too strongly tied to his hands. He was convinced that he was nothing without them. “You really did your research.”

“Perks of a college education.”

“Nevertheless, your research is incomplete. If it weren’t for me, Earth would be a lifeless marble sitting in one of Dormammu’s cosmic display cabinets. I am possibly even more indispensable as a sorcerer than a doctor.” He regrets that he will never fuse another transected spinal cord, but if it means the world continues to exist then Stephen can’t say that he will ever choose otherwise. It also helped that Stephen was forced to make a choice at a time when being a doctor would’ve helped literally no one at all. Additionally, it is very difficult to say no to a dying woman.

“Just because you’re a sorcerer doesn’t mean you have to stop being a doctor.”

“Perhaps someday,” Stephen allows. “You’re the first to tell me that.”

“Dichotomies are almost always false. If you’re stubborn enough to finish medical school _and_ earn a doctorate while you’re at it, you’re stubborn enough to find the middle ground and own it.”

They come to a stop in front of a large door.

“It really is just a door,” Tony remarks after a long stare at it. “What does this symbol mean? I saw it on the window upstairs too.”

“That is the Seal of Vishanti, a rune for warding places against attacks.” The Hong Kong and London Sanctums have variants of the rune adapted to maximise their effects based on the mystical properties of their geography. Stephen once spent an evening attempting to derive them from scratch and arrived at the exact same runes.

Tony flattens a hand on the door. “It’s very sturdy. Can I open it?”

“You can, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Wong gets a little irritated by unsanctioned access to the library,” Stephen says with a wry smile.

Which, of course, is when the door opens and almost flattens Tony’s nose.

Wong steps through the gateway with a ripple of space bending around him and stops abruptly when he sees them. “Stark. And Stephen.”

“Wong, right?” Tony says.

Wong looks unblinkingly at Tony, then says to Stephen, “Why is Stark here?”

“He came with food, a ‘congratulations on not dying’ gift. We’ve kept some for you under a stasis spell upstairs in the library. I texted you.”

“I know. I meant why is he in front of the gateway.”

“He wanted to see it.”

“And you let him?”

“This is far from the worst thing I can show him.”

Wong stares at Stephen for a second that seemed to stretch into an eternity. “I will know if he lingers on the second floor.”

“Wong we’ve talked about this. It’s not happening,” Stephen says with an exasperated shake of his head. Wong had wanted to know if he should call before coming over to the Sanctum. Stephen's answer remains no.

“You say that now. But I’ve seen you change your mind about more entrenched beliefs,” Wong retorts. And to be fair, Wong has a point. But it had taken getting his astral form punched out of his body for him to believe in magic, and Stephen can’t see how anything can come close to such persuasiveness with regards to romancing Tony.

“I know I have an amazing ass, but as much as I enjoy watching the two of you debate the likelihood of it ending up in Stephen’s bed,” Tony interrupts, and _of course_ Tony would remember where the bedrooms are from a throwaway comment, “I have to go. I left my intern alone and his most optimistic projection for the state of things when I return was a lack of self-immolation. I’ll see the two of you around?”

Walking over to the entrance of the Sanctum, Stephen says, “Not too soon, I hope. I’m not ready to die again just yet.”

“You’re a long way from actually hitting the ground, Gandalf, and we both know that.” Tony pushes open a door and gets into the passenger seat of a car idling conveniently in front of the Sanctum. “Think about what I said, Stephen. The medical and scientific communities haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for them.”

“ _Goodbye_ , Tony,” Stephen laughs when Tony continues attempting to persuade Stephen to dip his toes back into medicine even as his car pulls away.

When Tony’s car rounds a bend, Wong turns to Stephen and eyes him contemplatively. “What happened to ‘Stark won’t change anything’?”

Stephen rolls his eyes. “I stand corrected. ‘ _Tony_ won’t change anything.’”

“He already has. Smiling looks good on you, Stephen.” Wong claps him on the shoulder and heads back deeper into the Sanctum.

It’s not that Stephen hasn’t smiled at all while in Kamar-Taj. But Stephen understands where Wong is coming from—Kamar-Taj has always felt detached from the rest of the world, existing in a pocket of supernatural calm so far removed from what Stephen has known his entire life. Everything is different: the place, the culture, the people, the _magic_. Tony, with his easy references to science and technology, is a breath of fresh, familiar air. He is chaos and vibrancy and curiosity and if Stephen closes his eyes it’s almost like he’s back in Metro-General with patients lining up at his door, never alone in a hospital where something is always happening, not so much receiving ancient knowledge as continuously adapting his practices with every new finding.

Tony encompasses a lot of the things that Stephen misses about his life from before the accident. However, instead of a painful reminder, he feels more like hope, a promise that the door Stephen thought was closed to him can still be pushed open if only Stephen could harness the right conviction.

Stephen meant it when he said he doesn’t regret his chosen path. But he does occasionally think about the ‘what if’s in the quiet downtimes between tasks. If he gives it any more than a passing thought, almost nothing about his situation feels real and that, most of all, stretches him thin. It makes him reckless and a danger to himself because if nothing is real, what does it matter if he foregoes food and sleep in favour of finding ways to feel connected to something again? What is holding him here? What’s stopping him from just walking out into the streets and testing his strength against a car? If this is all a fever dream, then it wouldn’t hurt to just spend a day conjuring butterflies and getting lost in memories of his sister.

Tony couldn’t have come at a better time than after Stephen has died so many times that he’s lost perspective of how permanent death can (and should) be. Well, the marks covering Tony’s skin do the exact opposite of help, but Tony himself more than makes up for it.

When he made up with Christine after dozens of unread emails, Stephen had thought that she could be his anchor. She had been there for him at his worst and he has full confidence that she would have said yes if he asked. But she so rarely has time for herself that it would be unreasonable to demand that she make time for him too. So when Tony offered his time (and food) when Stephen most needed a touchstone, Stephen accepted.

Even then, it isn’t until today that Stephen realises how badly he needs somebody outside of Kamar-Taj in his life. Perhaps Christine, with whom Stephen already has an existing relationship, might have been the obvious choice, but Tony…Tony is such a pleasant surprise.

Following Wong up into the library, Stephen huffs an amused laugh. Tony Stark, a man whose life until very recently eclipsed Stephen in outrageousness, now a touchstone. Who would’ve thought.

\---

A couple of hours later, with a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other, Stephen’s eyes dart to his phone when it buzzes with a text.

Unknown number: I’ve never seen Mr. Stark so serene. Thank you Dr. Strange.

Stephen squints at the caller ID, wondering if he should recognise the number.

Unknown number: This is Peter by the way.

He would know if Tony has ever mentioned a ‘Peter,’ which he hasn’t. Should Stephen assume that a vengeful foe has kidnapped Tony and is passive-aggressively letting him know that he has Stephen’s soulmate hostage even though Stephen has only met Tony twice and Sherlock Holmes himself shouldn’t be able to deduce what they are to each other?

Unknown number: Sorry I just realised you probably don’t recognise my name.  
Unknown number: I’m Mr. Stark’s intern.

An intern. Stephen tilts his head. Exactly how involved in Tony’s life are his interns?

Unknown number: aqqcnmmmmmmd  
Unknown number: And I’m Tony  
Unknown number: Hi Stephen  
Unknown number: Peter is banned from using phones in the workshop from now on  
Unknown number: Let me know if he texts you again

You: I don’t mind.

And, just to demonstrate how little he minds, Stephen saves the number into his pitifully short list of contacts and sends a screenshot of Peter’s newly created contact profile.

Peter: Please don’t encourage him  
Peter: Peter is chatty enough as it is

You: As opposed to you?

Peter: Okay wow that was so uncalled for

You: Don’t hog your intern’s phone, Tony.  
You: You have your own.

A message pings from a different chat.

Tony: I hope you’re happy, you enabler  
Tony: If Peter starts developing magic-resistant armour I’ll know he’s still talking to you  
Tony: And I’ll also be really pissed at you for choosing to work with my intern over me  
Tony: But mostly you’ll be distracting Peter and he really doesn’t need help getting distracted  
Tony: Teenagers, you know

You: If you trust him enough to give him my name, and if he cares so much about you that he notices when you’re more ‘serene’ than usual, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t make his acquaintance.  
You: He seems like a nice boy.

Tony: He is  
Tony: He’s too nice, actually  
Tony: I thought teenagers were supposed to be moody and surly and pessimistic

You: If he’s joking about self-immolation, surely that’s pessimistic enough?

Tony: You’re right  
Tony: That’s pessimistic enough  
Tony: This calls for therapy  
Tony: Wanna help, doc?

You: I’m not that kind of doctor.  
You: But I can provide a list of readings, therapists, and psychologists, with personal recommendations.  
You: I’ve worked with some of them so I can vouch for their work ethic.

Tony’s reply takes a while to come this time.

Tony: Thanks doc  
Tony: Now would be a good time to call me by my name, by the way

Stephen doesn’t understand why this exchange represents a happy enough moment for Tony to warrant the use of his first name—surely this light-hearted banter can’t have that much emotional significance—but he’s seen enough of Tony in his moments of vulnerability to know that this isn’t something he takes lightly. So Stephen doesn’t hesitate.

You: You’re welcome, Anthony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who haven't watched Iron Man 3 (which should be nobody because IM3 was great), the last bit is in reference to Tony unloading his trauma onto Bruce, who fell asleep and told Tony that he’s not that kind of doctor and didn’t offer alternatives. Tony didn't seem too upset by it. Idk about you, but if all my friendships were like that I'd be surprised and overjoyed too if a new friend offered just a little bit more, especially when they didn’t need to.
> 
> Colàbrun is someone Stephen did fight in the [comics](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/colabrun/4005-58321/).  
> The idea of touchstones being people who ground those whose jobs aren't super in touch with real life was shamelessly adapted from this [Naruto fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/123110) (KakaIru)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony and Stephen text a lot. And Rhodey becomes the third person to know about them after Peter and Wong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Stephen don't meet in this chapter but they do banter. (I didn't have a lot of time this week so there may be more typos than usual since I rushed to write this. Do bear with me.)

Another day, another quiet 16 hours in the workshop.

Picking at the electrodes of Rhodey’s prosthesis, Tony can’t get Jonathan Pangborn out of his mind. After returning from the Sanctum (and contending with a wilful intern who has grown out of hero worship far too quickly), he asked FRIDAY about what exactly a complete C7-C8 spinal injury entailed. It turns out to be significantly worse than Rhodey’s injury. If Pangborn could use magic to walk then Tony wants to give Rhodey that option too.

The only problem, Tony decides, is that he doesn’t want the military (and the government, and the entire world) banging down Rhodey’s door demanding to know the cure for paralysis. Still, it’s not his decision to make, and he doesn’t even know if Stephen’s magic school is currently accepting new students or if there’s some sort of checklist to be fulfilled before somebody can be successfully enrolled.

Well, better to ask and be rejected than to never ask at all.

You: I have a friend.

Asclepius: Please tell me this isn’t one of those ‘I say friend but by friend I mean me’ conversations.

You: Shut up  
You: I have a friend  
You: His name is Rhodey  
You: Sometimes goes by the horrible name of Iron Patriot  
You: You might have heard of him

Asclepius: I have.  
Asclepius: What about him?

You: He’s having a bit of trouble walking these days

Asclepius: This is about Leipzig and Pangborn, isn’t it?

You: You read my mind  
You: Our thoughts are so in sync it’s almost like we’re soulmates

Asclepius: Haha. Very funny.  
Asclepius: What are you thinking, specifically?

You: I want to know if you can fix Rhodey’s legs.

Asclepius: How healed are we talking about?

You: Completely  
You: Sensation, motor control fine enough to paint with his feet, everything  
You: It’s a lower back injury less serious than Pangborn’s

Asclepius: He will have to undergo training at Kamar-Taj.  
Asclepius: Pangborn healed himself. I can’t help Colonel Rhodes directly.  
Asclepius: However I can say that it appears to be a constant drain on his energy.  
Asclepius: It was the reason why I decided not to fix my hands when I chose to stay.  
Asclepius: I’m not certain the colonel would enjoy the strain on his body if he wishes to remain with the military.

You: That’s a decision Rhodey has to make for himself  
You: I just want to give him all of his options

Asclepius: I can contact Pangborn just so we’re better informed about the process and possible side-effects.  
Asclepius: As a doctor, I can’t in good conscience recommend a completely unknown procedure.

You: You’re the best  
You: I can forward Rhodey’s charts to you if that helps you be a better doctor or whatever  
You: And before you get started on doctor-patient confidentiality  
You: Rhodey’s given me blanket permission to use them however I need them to be used

Asclepius: Are you always this prepared?

Tony snorts. He’s spent half of his life designing weapons that can be thought of as deterrents (if one is very generous) and excessively powerful resources for wars that should never happen (if one is very brutally honest). His response to being shown a massive alien invasion of Earth was to build an AI that went rogue. He projected that public resentment of the Avengers could tear them apart so he backed the Accords and it tore them apart anyway. Tony is all about preparation, even if he’s not very successful at making these preparations do what they’re supposed to do. And he never learns because he won’t forgive himself if he could’ve helped but didn’t. It’s just that he tends to overdo things.

You: I take pre-emptive measures wherever I can  
You: Prevention is better than cure, right?

Asclepius: Actually you seem more like an ‘easier to ask for forgiveness than get permission’ kind of person.  
Asclepius: But I suppose that’s not really true now, after the Accords.

Tony can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult. He hopes it’s a compliment but realistically speaking it’s probably not a ringing endorsement since Stephen himself hasn’t signed the Accords (though maybe it’s just because he’s so new to this whole ‘enhanced individual’ thing). But at least he hasn’t outright rejected Tony’s presence in his life because of it yet. God knows he’s had enough of that.

Asclepius: I’ve received Colonel Rhodes’ medical information.  
Asclepius: Do you have a list of concerns you’d like me to address as well?

You: You know what, I do  
You: Give me a couple of hours and I’ll draw up a list for you

\---

Tony doesn’t hear from Stephen again until a few days later. During that time, he has tracked down Wong’s number (which is, surprisingly, listed in a phonebook), approved the first prototype of Peter’s additional theme-compliant legs (but only grudgingly), read all of Stephen’s published papers (of which there are way too many for someone who wasn’t a full-time academic), and improved the response time of Rhodey’s prosthesis (mark 4) by 20%.

Over all it’s been a moderately productive few days, but Tony has the unsettling feeling of something crawling under his skin that he gets when nothing is happening when something should. Also, Rhodey's coming over for his new braces and Stephen hasn't gotten back to him about magic being an option yet. So when Stephen texts for the first time in days and it’s cryptic as fuck, Tony is running on two hours of sleep and is all coiled up like a python ready to lash out at anything.

Asclepius: I strongly recommend against allowing Colonel Rhodes to learn the mystic arts.

And that’s the last straw.

You: What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Why the hell not?

Asclepius: We believe one of ours has gone rogue and is targeting other sorcerers.

All of Tony’s pent up aggression grinds to a screeching halt.

Asclepius: Our healers are seeing to Pangborn right now.  
Asclepius: His magic was forcefully taken from him and he reverted back to his previous condition.  
Asclepius: But he’s not otherwise harmed.

You: Are you okay?

Asclepius: You know I didn’t die.

You: That’s really not what I asked

Asclepius: I’m sorry you got your hopes up.  
Asclepius: There are experimental treatments that showed promise when I last read about them.

You: Stephen

Asclepius: I don’t have access to most publications anymore but I can still put you in touch with the leading researchers back when I actually had hands that weren’t just for decoration.  
Asclepius: Not that, of course they think highly of me these days, but they’re always hungry for new subjects.  
Asclepius: A bit like you and BARF, but with actual clinical trials.

The self-deprecation, more than anything else, worries Tony, because Stephen didn’t strike Tony as somebody who indulges in it casually every two o’clock on a weekday unless Tony has just had an attack. Which clearly isn’t the case right now because Tony is fine (for Tony’s fucked up definition of fine anyway), so whatever is going on obviously isn’t good news for Stephen (well, even less good than rogue sorcerers already are).

You: Stephen  
You: I’m trying to ask if you’re all right you thousand-times-dead self-sacrificing fuck

Asclepius: Name calling, really?  
Asclepius: I told you I didn’t die.  
Asclepius: And I’m trying to give you information that’s more relevant to your interests.

You: You don’t get to decide what my interests are, asshole  
You: You know who does?  
You: ME.  
You: And right now I want to know if that rogue sorcerer got to you even if you didn’t die

Asclepius: I’m fine.

You: bullshit  
You: You’re like an entire star system away from fine  
You: Did you know this guy?

Tony waits. Tony waits, and he knows that the answer is yes before Stephen even starts typing because no one pauses so long to say no to that kind of question.

Asclepius: I did.

You: Were you close to him?

Asclepius: He brought me into Kamar-Taj.

Well shit.

You: That’s not a yes but I’ll take it  
You: It’s always difficult when someone you thought was always looking out for you suddenly switches sides  
You: Obie was a shit uncle anyway—a great mentor, but a shit uncle, which kinda makes a stupid amount of sense when you realise how difficult a teenager I was  
You: Didn’t stop me from loving him anyway

Asclepius: I wasn’t quite as close to Mordo as you might’ve been to Stane.  
Asclepius: But it does sting, I’ll admit.

Mordo. Tony isn’t exactly trained to track people down by name but that’s what he has FRIDAY for. He wants to know everything about Mordo and why, whether intentionally or not, he turned Stephen into this reclusive hermit with a penchant for self-flagellation. God help anyone that tries to take his eleventh favourite person in the world away from him.

You: Do you want to talk about what happened?

Asclepius: Not really. I just need some time.  
Asclepius: And some space.

You: I can send over comfort food

Asclepius: But not the pleasure of your company?

You: You said you needed space  
You: I’m not going to crash your pity party if you want to be alone  
You: You’re from Philadelphia, right?

Asclepius: Why am I not surprised that you know?

You: Because I own the largest, most successful tech conglomerate and therefore have a crazy-large number of resources at my disposal that can be used to find out these things?  
You: That’s a technical term, by the way, crazy-large  
You: Trust me I’m a doctor  
You: Three times over, even

Asclepius: I don’t know why people think you’re funny.

Having his sense of humour judged and found wanting has never been such sweet music to his ears. The banter and lack of self-loathing means that Stephen is feeling better, right? Good job, Tony. Keep it up.

You: RUDE  
You: And so back to my point  
You: I’m going to order some comfort food from good old Philly and you’re going to eat it and you’re going to feel better  
You: Doctor’s orders

Asclepius: None of your doctorates are in medicine, physiology, or biology.  
Asclepius: Forgive me if I take my own advice over yours.

It’s hard to tell over text messages if this is Stephen teasing him or if he’s actually pricklier than the last time Tony saw him. It would be nice if he could video call Stephen at some point. Stephen has an incredibly expressive face for somebody who seems to like to keep to himself.

You: Your advice wouldn’t happen to be ‘mope around and force a smile,’ would it?

Asclepius: I don’t even force smiles on good days.

You: You didn’t deny the moping  
You: And just so you know your advice sucks  
You: You wouldn’t give it to your patient so you shouldn’t give it to yourself

Asclepius: And what would you know about the advice I give my patients?

You: Nothing. Except they probably make more sense than that otherwise you wouldn’t be such a renowned neurosurgeon  
You: You’d’ve been sued out of everything

Asclepius: You said it yourself—I’m a neurosurgeon, not a shrink.  
Asclepius: I don’t give advice on how to deal with emotions.  
Asclepius: But I’m big enough to admit when I give myself special treatment, so I won’t deny my terrible and inadvisable coping strategies.

You: So you’re going to eat the food?

Asclepius: Binge eating is also a terrible coping strategy.  
Asclepius: But eating does release endorphins.  
Asclepius: So yes I’m going to eat the food.  
Asclepius: (Endorphins are the feel-good hormones, by the way.)

You: I know what endorphins are thank you very much  
You: And failing that may I remind you (again) that I own the largest tech conglomerate  
You: Looking things up on Wikipedia is the least I can do

Asclepius: Congratulations on achieving the research skills equivalent to an elementary school student.  
Asclepius: Wikipedia. Really?

You: Really.  
You: Wikipedia is enough if all I want to do is know what endorphins are

Asclepius: You’d be better off just asking your search engine to define it if that’s all you want.

You: Or I can just ask my AI

Tony doesn’t realise what he’s revealed until after he’s sent the text, at which point it’s too late to take anything back. While FRIDAY isn’t exactly a secret, he’s not eager to let just about anyone know about her either. The wrong people could demand that he hand over or disable her for fear of a robot apocalypse (which isn’t completely unfounded given Ultron, Tony thinks bitterly) and Tony isn’t ready to lose another AI again.

Asclepius: Of course you have one.  
Asclepius: It wouldn’t happen to be called Friday, would it?

What?

You: How do you know?

Asclepius: The first time you came over, you talked to your suit and called it Friday.  
Asclepius: Was I not supposed to know?  
Asclepius: I’m good at keeping secrets; you don’t have to worry about it getting out.

You: (Oh my god you use semicolons???)  
You: It’s fine  
You: AIs are common enough that nobody’s going to panic just because I have one  
You: It’s not like you know the extent of her capabilities anyway

Asclepius: (Evidently, yes, I use semicolons.)  
Asclepius: Don’t tell me any more.  
Asclepius: Plausible deniability and all that.

You: (Nobody uses semicolons!)

Asclepius: (I resent being called a nobody.)

You: (Semicolons are so fucking pretentious I can’t believe you use them)

Asclepius: (It’s not the first time somebody has called me pretentious. I’ll take that over nobody.)  
Asclepius: I think the food has just arrived.  
Asclepius: How much did you pay just to get them here so quickly?

You: Not much  
You: My name alone opens many doors

Asclepius: <2016-10-05 15.30.33.jpg>  
Asclepius: Thank you.  
Asclepius: But exactly how large do you think my appetite is?

That...that _is_ a lot of food. The portions looked smaller when FRIDAY showed them to him for approval.

You: I just picked whatever looked good  
You: Didn’t realise it was so much

Asclepius: Must be nice not having to worry about money.

He didn’t realise Stephen was hard up for money. A big house full of ancient artefacts didn’t exactly scream poor. But then, Tony doesn’t know if sorcerers even get paid. Considering Stephen’s previous lifestyle, however, it’s very likely that this is a (massive) step down from what he’s used to. But if Stephen is worried about money…

You: You do get three square meals a day, right?

Asclepius: Of course. Kamar-Taj isn’t unreasonable.  
Asclepius: We’re not exactly rolling in cash but things are cheaper in Nepal anyway.

You: Want to make a little money on the side?  
You: If Sanctum-sitting doesn’t take up all of your time, my R&D department would love to get their hands on your brain

Asclepius: Still keen on expanding my options, I see.  
Asclepius: And I hope you mean that figuratively.

You: They probably wouldn’t mind it literally as well  
You: But don’t worry I’ll put a stop to things before they get that far

Asclepius: They’d need to kill me a billion times before they can harvest my brain.  
Asclepius: I am secure in the knowledge that no human has such patience.

You: Great!  
You: There are upsides to these billion deaths after all!

Asclepius: Glad to know that my misfortune has its perks.

Tony winces.

You: Not good?

Asclepius: No I’m fine.  
Asclepius: Two weeks was apparently enough to get over it almost entirely.

You: Anyway I can spare a StarkPad for you so you’ll have access to all of our resources and relevant projects  
You: I’m trying to develop a new line of prostheses  
You: Rhodey, you know  
You: I could use your expertise  
You: We could use your expertise

Asclepius: I haven’t been keeping up with the latest in medical breakthroughs.

You: I’m sure you can make up for 6 months easily  
You: You started from nothing in med school after all  
You: Centuries, millennia of medical knowledge, stuffed into your brain in a handful of years!

Asclepius: Most of that “knowledge” was garbage.  
Asclepius: Not hard to learn millennia-worth of knowledge if you can ignore almost everything.

You: So that’s a yes to the StarkPad?

Asclepius: Soft yes.

You: Good enough for me  
You: I’ll have someone bring one to you soon  
You: Maybe two, just in case

Asclepius: Aren’t these things a thousand dollars apiece?

They are, on the market. They’re a lot cheaper to produce than they are to buy—SI has to make money somehow to fund their massive R&D department. But Tony has plans for Stephen’s that aren’t included in the standard model, including stabilisation technology and haptic feedback, just so Stephen has an easier time navigating with his hands.

You: Each of SI’s employees is entitled to one  
You: If you’re worried that it’s charity, I assure you that it most definitely isn’t

Asclepius: You do a lot of charity work.  
Asclepius: I won’t be surprised if this one of them as well.

You: Just for that I’m sending a phone over too  
You: Just looking at that brick of yours makes me want to hurl it back a century to where it belongs

Asclepius: This model came out only two years ago.

You: Yes, but from its condition it looks like it’s been through two world wars and an alien invasion

Asclepius: Well it’s been through a thousand deaths, I’ll give you that.  
Asclepius: The food is great, by the way.  
Asclepius: Give yourself a pat on the back for your choice of takeout restaurant.

At this point, FRIDAY informs him that Rhodey has just arrived at the compound. Tony grabs the most recently modified prostheses and a toolbox he’s filled with tools he figured he might need for adjusting the braces according to Rhodey’s feedback. He instructs FRIDAY to read Stephen’s messages to him while he dictates his reply on his way to meet with Rhodey. As he walks, he mentally shelves away the list of things he wanted to tell Rhodey about magic because that's clearly not on the table anymore.

You: I will, as soon as I can reach it

Asclepius: What’s wrong with your arms?

You: Nothing  
You: They’re just holding a pair of delicate prosthetic leg braces and some tools  
You: Rhodey’s come over for a fitting

Asclepius: I’ll leave you to it, then.  
Asclepius: Thanks again for the food.  
Asclepius: Your concern was unnecessary but appreciated anyway.  
Asclepius: I don’t want to be an imposition.

You: Feel free to impose on me again anytime  
You: I’m used to being imposed on a lot more and this sudden lack of imposition in the last few months is disconcerting

Asclepius: I foresee a billion deaths in our future to impose on you with.

You: Joy

Asclepius: Until the next thousand deaths, Tony.

“Who’s that you’re talking to?” Rhodey asks when Tony finally arrives at the common space, FRIDAY reading Stephen’s last text out loud.

Tony grins. “Rhodey bear! Take a seat. You won’t believe who I found while you were gone.”

Rhodey settles into a horrendously hard armchair that barely gives under his weight. “Another teenage genius?”

“Close, but not quite. You got the genius part right.” Tony checks the interface between Rhodey’s leg and the prosthesis for chaffing and is satisfied when there isn’t any sign of it. “What did you think of your current set of braces?”

“These braces are better than anything else on the market. The other folks at physiotherapy wanted to know where I got them. But the time lag still throws me off sometimes and I think my toes aren’t articulating as well as you said they should. So you’ve found an adult genius? Come on Tones, you’re not giving me much to go on.”

“Guess,” Tony says, and pulls his left glove off to feel the firmness of the contact points harbouring the electrodes. “I’ve recently recruited someone to make them even better. Tell your lame physiotherapy friends that these will be better _and_ cheaper than whatever they’re using right now. I guarantee it. How was the fit?”

“There are seven billion people out there. I can’t…” Rhodey trails off. “Tony. Are you wearing flesh-coloured gloves?”

“Nope,” Tony says, popping the 'p.'

“Then that’s your…”

“Yep.”

“And you’re smiling,” Rhodey says slowly. “So nobody’s dead?”

“In a manner of speaking. He did die a thousand times or so, but he’s still alive, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Are you supposed to be telling me this? It sounds like it needs a dozen NDAs.”

“That’s why I haven’t told anyone else. I was told all these as a representative of the Avengers so I don’t think he’d mind if I told you but please, don’t spread it.” Tony doesn’t want to know what kind of hell Stephen is capable of wreaking on unsuspecting mechanics who accidentally expose the secrets of magic to civilians. He’s sure it would be both incredibly creative and incredibly unpleasant.

“Wait, is he going to become one of ours? This undying soulmate of yours?”

“You know, Peter asked me the very same question.”

“You told Peter before you told me?” Rhodey asks incredulously.

“Don’t be so offended. He was there when it happened. Stephen’s just been promoted to the protector of some magical haunted house so I can’t expect him to double as an Avenger anytime soon.”

“So his name’s Stephen?”

“Please stop stating the obvious. Now, tell me, how’s the fit?”

“It’s fine. You’ve already seen the lack of chaffing and you know I can put it on without assistance since it barely looks like it’s moved since you first fitted me with it. It’s a bit loose around the foot but I imagine that’s less important than the rest of the leg since I’m not playing pianos with them.” Rhodey pauses. “Are you going to introduce us?”

“You and Stephen? Maybe someday. I barely know him myself.”

“You know him well enough to chat. That’s more than you’ve done with anyone recently,” Rhodey points out.

“You’re all busy. You, Pepper, Happy,” Tony says shortly. It sounds silly now that he’s said it.

“I can make time for my best friend, Tony. Jesus, I can’t believe you thought I’d mind!”

“It’s not just that. Stephen’s an excellent conversationalist, and it seemed like he needed someone to talk to as well,” Tony says.

“Do you like this guy, Tony?” Rhodey says slowly.

“We’re not jumping into bed together, platypus. We both agreed that we have more important things to do.”

“Not a no,” Rhodey sing-songs. “Is Anthony Edward Stark finally growing up and catching feelings?”

Tony huffs. He has eyes and can appreciate an attractive man like Stephen Strange, but feelings are a completely different monster altogether. Right now Tony doesn’t have the luxury of falling in love with an alien invasion to plan for.

“You know you’re allowed to, right? All this time you’ve been preparing for a world-ending apocalypse and it turns out to be just one man who’s basically immortal. You already have it easier than most—you didn’t find out who he is when one of you is dying for good.”

“It doesn’t matter. Neither of us are in the right place for it.”

“You’re in a better place than you were before. He won’t care about your skin.” Is Rhodey trying to set Tony up with Stephen? Even though he’s never met him? And here he thought that Rhodey’d play the part of an overprotective older brother and give any potential partners terrifying shovel talks.

“He might. Nobody likes being reminded that they’re going to die, let alone die a billion times.”

Rhodey throws his hands up. “You do you. But you’re going to regret it if you never give this Stephen a chance. People would die to be in your position, Tony.”

Tony knows what Rhodey means. Finding one’s soulmate is rare enough—finding them before it’s too late is even less common. That Tony’s been given this opportunity and chosen to ignore it must drive some people crazy. But really, if they live their lives believing in predestined perfect matches and holding out for that single person while knowing how unlikely it is that they’ll know even if they’ve found them, then they deserve to be driven crazy.

“People are stupid,” Tony says, even as he thinks that he wouldn’t trade Stephen for anyone else.

The universe is rarely so lazy, but coincidences do happen. Tony likes to think that he would’ve met Stephen eventually, given the similarities of their job scopes. Nevertheless, he does appreciate the push in the right direction. Whether it’s by _destiny_ or _fate_ isn’t important.

He’s met Stephen and they satisfy something in each other that nobody else has, and for now that’s all that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mordo is a minor subplot that will only come up when convenient for the story, which is probably almost never.
> 
> Credit to A Nonny Mouse for being an incredibly imaginative person whose comments always give me new ideas to play with!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peter and Wong ship it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm attending a boot camp (dear god why does grad school have a boot camp) so I have even less time than I did last week--please continue to tolerate my typos. I might also be slow to reply to comments, but I'll get to every thread eventually so don't worry. I will possibly have no time at all as the boot camp continues so there might not be an update next week. Sorry :(
> 
> (If you noticed the tags changing, your eyes are not deceiving you. I’m trying to figure out the applicable tags.)

Stephen is in the middle of a spectacularly boring but useful paragraph on combining spells to locate living beings within a given radius when one of the few people in his miserable contact list texts him. Unable to text back in his astral body, Stephen finishes up the sentence and then slips back into his physical body. It’s time he wakes up properly anyway.

Peter: Dr. Strange, do you have any ideas for putting Mr. Stark to sleep?  
Peter: He’s tried to drink engine oil twice already today and it’s only just past 9

Stephen remembers Peter. But why is Peter the intern-who-is-oddly-well-versed-in-Tony’s-personal-life-and-shouldn’t-be-texting-Stephen texting Stephen so early in the morning about Tony? On one hand, it’s nice to know that there’s somebody who cares about Tony and is physically capable of being there for him, even if it’s still incredibly weird that an intern has access to Tony on a personal level. On the other hand, it’s not as nice to know that Tony hasn’t been sleeping.

You: Should you be texting me?

Peter: Mr. Stark isn’t the boss of me.

You: Isn’t he?

Peter: Um right  
Peter: Nevermind  
Peter: Do you want me to stop?

You: No keep going.  
You: How long has he been awake?  
You: Infrequent sleep deprivation, while not recommended, rarely has significant long-term side effects if the sleep debt is promptly repaid.

Peter: He hasn’t slept since I was here yesterday.  
Peter: So at least 24 hours  
Peter: And FRIDAY says it happens all the time

You: How often is ‘all the time?’

Peter: Um…sometimes he gets five or six hours every few days  
Peter: And other times he spends entire days in bed  
Peter: Almost every month apparently  
Peter: I’m not a creep I promise!  
Peter: FRIDAY keeps track of these things  
Peter: She says she can send you his sleep schedule for the past year  
Peter: Apparently she’s authorised to do anything in her power to keep Mr. Stark alive  
Peter: And this time he’s “too excited developing new StarkPad features to make time for rest in fi-OH MY GOD it’s been FIVE DAYS  
Peter: Mr. Dr. Strange you need to help him  
Peter: I would if I could but Mr. Stark doesn’t even let me touch his kitchenette for some reason  
Peter: Something about bots and smoothies  
Peter: But anyway please let me know what I can do to get him to sleep.

Dear god, does this kid ever stop talking? Maybe Tony isn’t the only one who needs to be sedated.

You: Is he on any medication? Any known health complications?

Peter: Not according to FRIDAY

You: Give him melatonin.

Taking it so early in the day will mess with Tony’s sleep cycle, but if he’s been awake for five days it’s already been shot to hell anyway.

Peter: That’s it?

You: Yes.

What else was Peter expecting? An elaborate plan to lure Tony away from his workshop? Stephen is a doctor, not a criminal mastermind.

Peter: Brand?

You: Doesn’t matter.  
You: I assume he’s only awake thanks to adrenaline and unhealthily large and frequent doses of caffeine.

Peter: Yeah  
Peter: He alternates between black coffee and the newest flowery Starbucks frappe  
Peter: With extra shots of espresso

You: Crush the melatonin pills and dissolve them into decaff coffee.  
You: Order in if you have to.  
You: He’ll want to drink something when he’s thirsty and looking for another caffeine fix.  
You: The crash will be significant—try to ensure that he’s on a sofa of some sort when you give it to him.

Peter: Thanks.

Having done everything short of going over himself and putting Tony to sleep with a spell, Stephen sets his phone down (Tony’s right, it really does look like it’s been through a fair number of wars) and gets up to start the day. A day that, in all likelihood, can only go one of two ways: massive supernatural disaster or too-quiet Sanctum-sitting.

Being a Sanctum Master is a lonely job. Stephen didn’t notice his isolation when he was a neurosurgeon and surrounded by people at all times of his 30-hour work days. But here, the Sanctum? It’s large and still and it echoes of so much age and history that Stephen never stops being hyperaware of how small he is, a mortal man alone in a building too infinitely large and old for one person.

The problem with being a Master of a Sanctum, Stephen eventually decides, is that he’s on call 24/7 every day. Villainy doesn’t run on a schedule and not all planets and dimensions even have 24-hour days, much less follow New York time. And to think that he was naïve enough to hope that a new job meant the end exhausting 30-hour work days. (Well, technically his 30-hour work days have ended—he’s just got an every-hour-of-every-day kind of work schedule now, which in hindsight seems like the worst deal ever and he really should’ve considered all these before saying yes to the Ancient One so quickly.)

Returning to his room after washing up, there’s a text waiting for him.

Peter: Knocked him out like a light

You: You had melatonin on hand?

Peter: Miss Potts used to do the same so there was a half-used packet of it  
Peter: FRIDAY told me.  
Peter: She intercepted on day 2  
Peter: Should we do the same?

Interesting that Peter said ‘we’ instead of ‘I.’ Who’s ‘we?’ Is he including Stephen? He shouldn’t. Stephen’s never had much of a regular sleep cycle. Ironically, doctors are far from the healthiest people around—mostly he caught what sleep he could between shifts. Guarding a Sanctum is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Too much time for sleeping except when he’s getting killed, then there’s no time to sleep at all.

You: Whenever you see fit.  
You: You’re closer to him.

Peter: But you’re a doctor.

You: You have access to Tony’s person.  
You: Your evaluation of when to stage an intervention would be more accurate than mine.

Peter: I can’t _diagnose_ him  
Peter: I can’t tell when he needs to sleep

You: I can send you a list of things to look out for.  
You: And I am always just a text or phone call away.  
You: You’ll do fine on your own.

Peter: What if I don’t _want_ to do this on my own?

You: What do you mean?

Peter: Mr. Stark doesn’t always listen to me because he feels responsible for me  
Peter: He finds it difficult to get out of the role of a protector and let me help him  
Peter: Mr. Stark likes you well enough.  
Peter: Respects you also

You: Your point being?

Peter: And I think you care about him too  
Peter: Can we help him together?

There’s something about the way Peter asks that tugs at Stephen. It’s been a while since Stephen was in any position to help. Before then he worked largely alone, and never because he was emotionally invested in his patient. For once he’s being asked if he wants to help as if he has a choice instead of having his assistance be taken as a given because he’s a doctor.

Even so, even though he’s no longer a practising doctor, his answer hasn’t changed.

You: Yes.

\---

In the month since the Ancient One foisted the job on him, Stephen has left the Sanctum only to go to Kamar-Taj and the coffee shop across the street. Meals are settled with Kamar-Taj…in a manner of speaking. (“Come on, Wong, there’s no real food here!” “Tell Stark you’re dying.” “Just open a portal and give me today’s lunch or I’ll take it myself.” “Would be great if you ask before taking books too.”)

Finishing up his morning meditation, Stephen unfolds his legs and plants them firmly back on solid ground. As Stephen pads out of the room towards the portal to Kamar-Taj, he pulls his phone out of his pocket to alert Wong that he’s coming to get his daily lunch ration early. A message from Tony is waiting for him when he unlocks his phone.

Tony: Don’t even dare tell me you weren’t colluding with my intern

You: Oh hello Tony.  
You: How was your rest?

Tony: Drug-induced, and you know it

You: Melatonin is a hormone produced naturally by your body.

Tony: Still a drug when administered  
Tony: And I was still artificially put to sleep

You: Desperate times, desperate measures.  
You: You were awake for five days in a row.

Tony: I’ve read sleep deprivation studies  
Tony: As long as I make it up with a day or two of sleep, 10 days shouldn’t pose permanent problems

You: And how productive will you be if you stayed awake any longer than you did?  
You: You were drinking engine oil.

Tony: It’s not toxic

You: No, it’s not.  
You: But it does have a laxative effect.  
You: You will find yourself glued to a toilet seat for a long time.

Tony: So kind of you to think of my body’s housekeeping processes

Stephen would rather not, actually, but if Tony insists on taking such poor care of his body Stephen will be forced to bring the full force of his professional disapproval upon him. Some things are too ingrained in him to simply ignore, especially when someone he’s coming to care about is destroying himself so carelessly.

You: As Peter pointed out while you were blacked out, I am a doctor.  
You: Go back to sleep, Tony. It's only been a couple of hours.

Tony: Can’t  
Tony: You’ve fucked with my circadian rhythm

You: You’ve barely been asleep for three hours.

Tony: I’ve lasted longer on less  
Tony: If you want your StarkPad anytime soon, you’ll stop Peter from drugging me again

Stephen takes a deep, steadying breath. Is this why Tony hasn’t slept in five days? Does Tony often do this? Make things for people and then forget to sleep? As if Stephen wants a StarkPad if he knows that Tony isn’t getting any sleep over it.

You: I don’t believe you understand my priorities regarding you very well.  
You: So here they are, ranked and numbered so that even your sleep-deprived mind can comprehend it easily.  
You: 1. Your physical health  
You: 1. Your mental health  
You: 1. Your emotional health  
You: 1. Your health in general  
You: The above four are tied in first place.  
You: And all the way down at the bottom, only on the list because it matters to you: StarkPad  
You: I’ve skipped a few hundred bullet points but you get the idea.  
You: I am at least a halfway decent human being first and foremost and a doctor second, and if you think for one moment that I’m going to let you work yourself to exhaustion for a StarkPad just because you think I’d like it, you don’t deserve any of your doctorates.  
You: Listen to Peter and go to sleep.

There is a long moment during which Stephen stands at the foot of the stair hall staring intently at his phone, willing Tony to see reason.

Then, his phone rings.

“I hate you so much right now,” Tony says immediately when Stephen answers the call. It sounds more like a frustrated gust of wind and sound than actual words, like air pushed out through a throat that’s too tight and lungs that are too small.

Stephen pulls the phone away from his ear to check that the caller is, indeed, Tony. “I thought you preferred to text. Are you okay?”

“You’re different and I hate you so much.”

“Yes, I got that the first time,” Stephen says, bewildered but unwilling to take back anything. Hate is a strong word and Tony isn’t speaking with the sort of intensity that it should inspire, so he obviously doesn’t mean it. But then what _does_ he mean? “Although I don’t believe you’re in any position to hate me for being different considering you’re not exactly ordinary yourself. Tony, are you okay? You sound out of breath. Are you...?”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but no. Peter’s in the workshop too,” Tony interrupts. “Can you just…shut up? I’m trying to have a moment here.”

So Stephen shuts up. On the other side of the phone, on the other side of New York, Tony’s breaths come in a slow, shuddering rhythm, a clear indication that he’s consciously regulating it. What does he mean by ‘a moment?’ It’s too vague. The English language is built for many things but articulating Tony Stark’s many nuanced moods apparently isn’t one of them.

“What kind of moment?” Stephen ventures to ask after he’s counted sixty of his own heartbeats.

“The kind of moment I refuse to discuss the next time we talk,” Tony says, voice still quick and vaguely flustered, as if speaking any slower would cause it to crack.

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Just one word. Good or bad.”

The sounds of swallowing, lips being licked. More swallowing. “Good,” Tony finally mutters, softly like he’s not sure if he wants to say it. It feels intimate, vulnerable, the last thing Stephen expects from any conversation between himself and Tony. The last thing Stephen expects from any conversation involving himself, really. He’s not exactly a poster boy for heart-to-hearts.

But okay. Okay, Stephen can work with ‘good.’ Thinking back on the last time Stephen felt so unsure of what’s running through Tony’s mind, the last time there was an awkward lull in their conversation that Stephen didn’t see coming, the last time this uncertainty translated into some emotion on the right side of neutral in Tony’s unfathomably complex mind, he recalls the moment when he offered options for therapy and was told to call Tony by his name. Once again, he doesn’t know what set Tony off, but this silence feels qualitatively similar, like Tony’s found something he didn’t expect either and he doesn’t know what to make of it except that it’s _not_ _bad_.

Two is barely a pattern, and really Stephen can’t for the life of him make the therapy banter fit with his nascent hypothesis, but he has to try. The sooner he finds a pattern the sooner he can be of greater help.

“Is this another time for your name?” he asks, low and slow, matching the quiet intimacy that Tony has set in motion.

Tony laughs, a little hysterical. “Is it? I can’t tell.”

“You don’t sound upset,” Stephen points out. Extreme emotions tend to manifest in very similar ways, including crying, shouting, and hysterical laughter. If Tony isn’t on the side of the spectrum that’s rooted in burning, angry irritation, he’s very likely on the far end on the other side.

“I’m sleep deprived. I don’t have the energy to be upset,” Tony deflects, and it’s light and contented and yes, still a little hysterical, but Stephen isn’t going to question it, not when everything else seems to be glowing. “And I’m going to take a nap.”

Stephen’s eyebrows shoot up at Tony’s easy concession to getting some sleep, but a win is a win, even if Stephen doesn’t know how or why Tony’s giving up the fight.

“Sweet dreams, Anthony,” Stephen says at last, and immediately hangs up before Tony can ruin the moment in all its Tony-declared ‘goodness’ with even more deflection. He keeps his phone on for long enough to see Tony’s expected deflection (‘I hate your perceptiveness’) and Peter’s unexpected reassurance (‘He doesn’t!’) in textual format, then slides it into his pocket.

“That was very sweet,” Wong suddenly deadpans from the direction of the Kamar-Taj portal.

Stephen jerks around, scowling. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” Wong says, and doesn’t even have the decency to look as judgemental as his words are. Stephen is torn between wanting to know how he does that and trapping him in the mirror dimension to spare himself further torment. “Are you sure I still don’t need to call before coming over in case _Anthony_ is around?”

“Absolutely certain,” Stephen says curtly. “What do you want?”

“I need you to train the advanced apprentices,” Wong tells him, getting straight to the point.

“No.”

“I will allow you to borrow up to ten books a week,” Wong counters without missing a beat.

“Tempting, but still no. I have a Sanctum to protect, or have you forgotten where you stand?” Stephen says, spreading his arms out and gesturing at the building around them.

“Master Hamir has volunteered to guard it in your stead while you are at Kamar-Taj.”

“Why doesn’t Master Hamir teach them?”

“Master Hamir has a bad hip,” Wong says dryly. Liar. Stephen knows for a fact that Master Hamir is as spry as a man half his age. “And your intuition allows you to better sense the flow of energies in order to correct mistakes.”

“Why did you even ask if I don’t have a choice?” Stephen finally asks of Wong.

“Formality.” Wong pauses. “And courtesy,” he adds as an afterthought in a tone that Stephen interprets to mean that there was no courtesy involved at all, only a deep, cruel desire to taunt Stephen with a choice when there never was one.

“I want my meals without complaints. Regular, human food.” As Stephen makes his demand, it occurs to him that perhaps Wong has been deliberately making things difficult to set the groundwork for demanding more from Stephen for a lower price.

“Naturally,” Wong says, as if he hasn’t been ‘accidentally’ forgetting that Stephen doesn’t subsist on squirmy supernatural creatures like the other Masters who’ve been practising for much longer than he has. Stephen isn’t looking forward to when his body finally makes the transition to rejecting normal food for normal humans in favour of the bubbly, stringy entrails of extra-dimensional game. “Anything else?”

“I also want days off.”

“What do you think these apprentices are for? Once trained, they can assist any Sanctum Masters who wish to delegate.”

Stephen likes the sound of that. Of course, he’d prefer to have fully trained Masters give him a break now, but surely it can’t take all that long to have advanced apprentices ready for Sanctum-sitting. After all, there isn’t much to do on a regular day other than sit and collect dust and alert Kamar-Taj if something beyond their capabilities happens. “All right. I accept these terms. When do I start?”

“Tonight at eight, and every other weekday. It will be morning at Kamar-Taj.”

Stephen blinks. “That’s not a lot of time to prepare.”

“This is the recommended training regime prepared by previous Masters,” Wong says blithely, thrusting a thick journal filled with loose pages into Stephen’s hands. “You already know the spells. Just watch the apprentices and contain any mistakes before they burn Kamar-Taj to the ground.”

“Optimistic,” Stephen sniffs. “And my lunch?”

Wong opens a portal to retrieve something, the smells of spices wafting through it and into the Sanctum.

“Here.” Wong sets a metal tray loaded with dishes on top of the journal. Stephen marvels at Wong’s faith in his ability to keep his hands from jerking all of the soup out of the bowl. “And tell Stark that soulmates and family have visitation rights so he’s allowed to drop by Kamar-Taj as long as you accompany him. Maybe then he’ll stop standing in front of portal doors asking to have his nose broken.”

“You know that he’ll just spend the entire time there taking readings and driving everybody up the ancient stone walls with his scientific rambling, right?” Stephen says, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yes. And I also know that you’ll like it,” Wong says, his expression never shifting away from some shade of deeply unamused.

“This isn’t about me,” Stephen says tersely.

“I see that the Ancient One gave you _that_ talk.” Wong tilts his head, appearing to consider his next words carefully. “Stephen, just because ‘it’ isn’t about you doesn’t mean that _nothing_ is about you. That way lies self-destruction. And even if you insist on never doing anything for yourself, think of Stark. I have no doubt that he worries for you. Take care of yourself for him.”

The idea of taking care of himself for Tony’s sake (in addition to taking care of Tony for Tony’s sake) only barely edges out the reality of Wong trying to impart self-care on him in bizarreness. There is also the oddly unsettling revelation that the Ancient One had given ‘that talk’ to other people often enough that Wong has formed a strong and disapproving opinion about it. (Then again, Wong forms strong, disapproving opinions about many things, so Stephen really shouldn’t be surprised.) And, following logically from that, an equally unsettling revelation that Wong’s disagreement with the Ancient One’s teachings reorders how Stephen perceives the structure and hierarchy of Mystic Arts philosophy.

Shaking these thoughts away from the forefront of his mind for further contemplation when he’s alone and not shakily holding a tray with soup on it, Stephen says, “I’ll talk to him about it.”

“As you should. Don’t ignore yourself for the greater good. If Stark is what it takes for you to find that balance, tell him that he’s welcome to talk to me about you. We have much to discuss.”

Wong returns to Kamar-Taj without so much as a wave goodbye, leaving Stephen to stew in silence about his interpretation of the words ‘it’s not about you’ and the prospect of Wong and Tony conspiring against him like Stephen did with Peter against Tony just earlier today.

Turnabout’s fair play, he supposes.

Wong wouldn’t even have to try very hard to draw Tony into it; Tony’s already working himself sick customising technology for Stephen’s convenience. Neither Stephen nor Tony are alright by anybody’s definition the word, too caught up in making amends and holding together the world as they know it with their broken bodies, but, maybe together, they can help each other get there someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stephen eats the most disgusting dish of entrails in the comics because of long exposure to magic. Canon is weird.
> 
> It occurred to me that some people might think that Tony was...not decent during the phone call. Which was definitely not my intention. I just meant for him to be emotional and desperately want to ground himself by hearing Stephen’s voice. So I modified it. Hopefully it’s less implicitly dirty now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things (specifically Pepper, Wong, and a trip to Kamar-Taj) conspire so that Tony starts feeling a need to bring not-romantic soulmate Stephen home to ‘meet the family.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And I bring with me a slightly-longer-than-usual chapter. (Does anybody else accidentally write more than they meant to or is it just me?) School has started proper so the coherence of my writing might get a bit questionable, but I will do my best to deliver regular updates!

Tony’s presence at the board meeting is just a formality. That, and he has to show his face once in a while so the media doesn’t start running articles about him dying (again). He had clean forgotten about it until a furious Pepper had called and Peter (ironically) woke Tony with a loud and passionate defence about Tony’s right to sleep a proper amount.

At which point Tony decided that he might as well attend since he’s already awake. Pepper met him at SI, full of apologies, but Tony waved her off because he wouldn’t have been asleep anyway if it weren’t for Peter and Stephen’s well-meaning interference.

As Pepper begins talking about projections and goals for the current and upcoming quarters, FRIDAY alerts him to a series of texts from Stephen. Holding his breath, he slides his hands beneath the table to reach his phone and silently taps out the commands to display it on his glasses. Stephen has never initiated contact without a situation on his end before.

Asclepius: In an unexpected show of compassion, Wong has allowed me to trade Sanctum-sitting for apprentice-sitting every other weekday at 20:00, starting today.  
Asclepius: You’re welcome to join me at Kamar-Taj during this time.  
Asclepius: If you’re up for it, you can bring your instruments with you as well.

Tony lets out a small, relieved sigh. His eyes dart quickly over to Pepper, who gives no indication that she’s noticed his attention drifting, then return to his display. Under the table, his fingers fly across the surface of his phone.

You: I can be at Bleecker Street by 19:45

How can Tony resist the chance to study actual magic _and_ visit Nepal without having to sit through a long-haul flight?

Asclepius: You should be asleep.

You: Unexpected board meeting

Asclepius: Unexpected because it was unscheduled, or unexpected because you forgot which day it is?

You: Can I choose not to answer that?

Asclepius: It doesn’t matter.  
Asclepius: I already know which it is.  
Asclepius: Another example of sleep deprivation affecting your ability to function.  
Asclepius: You really shouldn’t be awake right now.

You: Then why are you texting me at this time?

Asclepius: If I wanted an immediate response I would’ve called.  
Asclepius: Messaging is tedious with my hands.

Tony’s brows furrow together. They’ve texted extensively in the past weeks and while it occurred to Tony that Stephen’s shaking hands would have difficulty pressing the tiny keyboard buttons on his phone, he didn’t think it was too bad. In hindsight it’s so obvious Tony wants to hit himself over the head for not figuring out sooner.

You: You didn’t mention that before

Asclepius: It’s not a huge deal.

You: You should’ve said something  
You: The tiny buttons on a touchscreen keyboard must be hell on your fingers  
You: How are you even texting?

Asclepius: I use a on-screen number pad.

You: Dear god  
You: A NUMBER PAD  
You: This is the 21st century  
You: I’m going to get you the best damn voice service AI the world has ever seen  
You: No arguments

Arguing would be useless anyway since Tony has already spent the last five days building that exact feature for Stephen and it’s just about ready to be rolled out.

Asclepius: I reserve the right to refuse if you stay up for five days in a row again.  
Asclepius: I will not be complicit in further upsetting your sleep.  
Asclepius: Peter would probably eviscerate me.

You: Are we talking about the same Peter?  
You: Peter my intern?  
You: Because the one I know won’t even hurt a spider

Asclepius: Fly.  
Asclepius: The saying is ‘won’t hurt a fly.’

Damn it. Tony swears he’s trying to keep Peter’s superhero identity a secret. He blames sleep deprivation.

You: Right  
You: Fly  
You: Whatever  
You: I’ll see you at 19:45  
You: You’re getting a new phone whether you like it or not

Asclepius: This is the first time someone has threatened me with an expensive gift.

You: Pitfalls of being my friend

Asclepius: Shall I return the favour by threatening you with more sleep?

You: You know I hate you, right?

Asclepius: Certainly not.  
Asclepius: But you can keep telling yourself that.

The collar of his shirt suddenly feels too tight, his neck too warm. Stephen Strange will be the death of him. He doesn’t exactly want Stephen to turn back time so that he can stop himself from ever making the call, but he does wish that Stephen wouldn’t bring it up when he’s in the middle of a meeting. Actually, he wishes that Stephen wouldn’t bring it up at all. Tony’s emotional quota is completely spent. Clearly, FRIDAY should start forbidding him from making any calls when he hasn’t slept in five days.

You: I’m beginning to think that your memory isn’t so perfect after all

Asclepius: My perfect memory is precisely why I know you don’t hate me.

In the time that Tony takes to try to formulate a reply that walks the fine line between not being too vulnerable and not pushing Stephen away, Stephen sends another text, and then another, saving Tony from any potential fuck ups.

Asclepius: I will see you tonight.  
Asclepius: You might even get to have authentic Nepalese food for dinner if Wong plays nice.

You: Looking forward to it

Tony puts his phone away and looks up to find that Pepper is nearing the end of today’s planned content, strawberry blond hair swaying with every turn of her head. She’s in her element, bright and strong and determined, forceful when she needs to be and utterly intolerant of bigotry.

He likes that about her a lot, which he supposes is why he often found himself wondering what it would be like to take her out to dinner at some point, watch her descend a flight of stairs in a fancy dress with her hair done up in delicate red curls, lead her to a table and marvel at the way she makes Louboutins look as comfortable as bath slippers. But seeing her now, bold and unwavering in the face of criticism, full of everything that he’s ever admired about her, all he sees is the powerful cut of her suit and the steel in her spine. There is no low-back shift, no sleek red heels.

There is just Pepper, his friend, the CEO of his company. Capable, reliable, Pepper Potts.

Pepper Potts, who has wrapped up the meeting and is heading towards him with her arms full of folders and concern written all over her face.

“Tony, I’m really sorry I dragged you here today. I didn’t know you haven’t been sleeping,” she says.

“That’s on me—you know how I am, all week-long tinkering binges fuelled by insane ideas and instant coffee.” Tony glances around the room, watches board members leaving in small groups with their heads bent together and a determined set to their mouths as they talk heatedly. “Great pep talk, by the way. Everyone looks psyched.”

“Just doing my job. I hope you’re going back to sleep after this,” Pepper says sternly.

Tony flashes her a grin. “Actually I’m going to Nepal.”

Her face pinches into utter confusion. “What?”

“I was invited.” Tony’s checks his watch. “And I’m about to be late.”

Pepper cocks her hips and gives Tony a soul-searching stare that makes the hairs on his arms stand. “Are you going to see Stephen? The soulmate you told Rhodey about? Does he live in Nepal?”

Tony squints at her. “Is there a secret group chat I don’t know about where my closest friends gossip about me? How did you even make the connection? I only told Rhodey his name.”

“We’re just looking out for you.” Pepper then looks him straight in the eye, her lips parting in a gentle smile as she says, “You’re looking better. Bring him around sometime.” Then she sashays away, the red soles of her killer heels flashing like stop lights

“We’re not together!” Tony calls after her.

“Unimportant!” Pepper replies without looking back, never breaking her stride.

Tony takes a moment to watch as she goes. Maybe, if he tries, he can hear the strains of violins, see the way chandeliers cast broken shards of light across brilliant silverware set for two, but the sway of her hips and her coy red lips blur into an indistinguishable haze. Somewhere along the way, he stopped yearning for the idea of her he conjured in his imaginations.

Pepper is right, Tony thinks. It doesn’t matter whether he’s dating Stephen. People can be important to him and can make life a little less tedious even without expensive dining at Michelin 3-star restaurants. He’s always known this, of course, but he’s never been satisfied with the sum of his relationships, always felt like some part of him is so incredibly lonely despite having friends who love him deeply through his worst. Perhaps that’s why he wanted something different with Pepper in the hopes that sharing more of his life with someone, specifically this brilliant spitfire of a someone who’s never failed him, could finally fill the yawning emptiness in him.

And then Stephen happened.

Stephen, whose trembling hands conjure portals and disperse matter across the universe, who has been broken like Tony but also managed to find the strength to pull himself back together. Here comes a kindred spirit Tony never hoped to find, and suddenly Tony isn’t alone in his brokenness anymore. Without really changing anything about his life, Tony has achieved a level of contentment that wasn’t there before he met Stephen.

And that’s worth bringing Stephen around.

(But only if he can get Wong to let Stephen leave the Sanctum at all.)

\---

Tony shows up at the Sanctum at a quarter to eight armed with any and every kind of sensor he could get his hands on. The blood in his veins has been nearly entirely replaced by coffee to ensure that he stays awake long enough to set up his equipment.

When Stephen opens the door, he levels Tony an unimpressed look. “Seriously?” he says, eyeing Tony’s heavy case.

“I like to be prepared,” Tony reminds him, and follows Stephen into the Sanctum.

“Yes, I remember,” Stephen says. He favours Tony with a halfway gentle soft expression and adds, “Among other things that I also remember.”

Tony wants to roll his eyes so hard he can almost see the back of his head, he really does. But he’s trying to cultivate a long-term relationship of some sort here (even if it’s decidedly not romantic) and he’s heard that a little bit of emotional vulnerability is good for these things (but hasn’t he been vulnerable enough already?), so he wrestles that desire into submission. “Are you aware that there’s someone else here?” Tony asks instead, because there is indeed a man Tony’s never seen before standing on the stairs overlooking them.

“That’s Master Hamir. He’ll be guarding the Sanctum while I’m away. Master Hamir, this is Tony.”

Ah, so this is he of the facial hair whom Stephen once mistook for the Ancient One. His robes are significantly more voluminous than Stephen’s—personal preference, or a sign of seniority? Tony waves and receives a cordial nod in return as he and Stephen round the corner to the gateway to Kamar-Taj.

Wong is reading a book at a heavy table when Stephen swings the gateway’s doors open with a flick of his wrist. Stephen steps through first and Tony watches raptly as space ripples all around him like water with the colour of sparks spit from forging fires.

“FRIDAY, begin recording,” Tony mutters.

“Of course,” FRIDAY says, and a corner of his glasses start scrolling with new data.

Taking a deep breath, Tony crosses over the threshold. It doesn’t feel like much, just a soft brush of _something_ across his skin and then he’s in a library in Nepal, surrounded by stone pillars carved with intricate details, sweeping upward into a— _is that a model of the Earth suspended above him?_ He wants five of that in his workshop. Further down, where Wong is, there are shelves densely packed with books that look so ancient that Tony doesn’t even dare to breathe in their direction. He’s tingling slightly all over, like every nerve ending is alight. Is this what magic feels like?

“When I said he’s allowed to visit I didn’t think you’d bring him over so soon,” Tony hears Wong say once he’s stopped gaping wide-eyed at the static in the air and the surreal aesthetic of the library. Are those books _chained_ to a metal gate?

“I didn’t think so either,” Stephen says, though he sounds more fondly exasperated than annoyed.

“Stephen invited me, so it’s really his fault,” Tony interjects. All the while, his head is still tilted up so that he can ogle the amazing floating globe more effectively.

“I didn’t tell you to come today.”

“But you didn’t tell me _not_ to. So here I am.” Tony finally tears his eyes away points at the globe. “How is it even _doing_ that?”

Wong looks between the two of them and says quickly, “Please don’t get Stephen started. The apprentices are waiting.”

Tony perks up with delight. “You’ll have to tell me all of your theories later.”

“Of course,” Stephen concedes, even if it’s not much of a concession because he seems just as eager as Tony to understand how the ‘mystic arts’ work. He turns towards the exit as Wong gets up from the table, gesturing for Tony to follow. “Training is conducted at the courtyard. Even if you grow bored of the lesson, there’s an excellent view to keep you occupied as long as you don’t fall asleep first.”

“I don’t think we’re in any danger of that happening. I could study this place for _days_.” Tony draws his hand across the masonry lining the corridors outside the library, feeling every little dip and bump under his fingers and enjoying the mildly prickly sensation that can’t only be due to the roughness of the stones.

“I’d really rather you not. You’re not dying from sleep deprivation on my watch,” Stephen says from up ahead.

“Nor on mine,” Wong adds.

“Unfortunately, I won’t have time to show you around until after I’m finished with my duties in about two hours. Even then I’m not sure how much time I’m allowed to steal for myself before Master Hamir wishes to return here.” Stephen casts an apologetic glance back at Tony.

“I will confer with Master Hamir on your behalf,” Wong says. “You are overdue for a break.”

Stephen’s eyebrows rise marginally. “You’re being unusually cooperative.”

Wong looks like he wants to shrug even though shrugging probably goes against his personal policy of permanent indifferent disapproval. “We can’t have you irritable when you’re training the apprentices.”

Stephen doesn’t look convinced but he doesn’t fight it either. As they come up to the courtyard, Stephen says, “Most of the courtyard will be in use. Keep your instruments to the periphery or I won’t be responsible if an apprentice accidentally breaks them. You can take a seat on the steps there if you like. The newer apprentices do it all the time when the advanced classes are in session.”

Everything is awash in the soft glow of sunrise, all golden light and long shadows. The view is, as promised, spectacular, with a breath-taking mountain range beyond the expansive grounds of Kamar-Taj, but what really catches Tony’s eye is how at home Stephen looks. He’s shrugging off his outer robes and folding them neatly, and wow, Tony didn’t realise that magic could result in that kind of physique. He should really start looking into learning it.

“Hang on to this for me?” Stephen says to Tony, smiling, and the morning sun hits him at just the right angle so that his eyes are a dozen different shades of glittering seaglass.

Tony has always thought that Stephen was handsome in a slightly unconventional way, with his almost-but-not-quite-too-high cheekbones and an almost-but-not-quite-too-low voice. But right now, for the first time, Tony catches himself thinking that Stephen is beautiful.

Numbly, Tony takes the robes from Stephen and lays them on top of his case. It must be the lighting, he decides, and then brushes all thoughts of Stephen’s mysteriously beautiful smile away. The Cloak of Levitation drifts over to Tony and settles itself snugly onto his shoulders like they’re some sort of old friends. Tony pats it awkwardly and tries not to notice how dangerously close the edges of the Cloak come to brushing the ground when he’s wearing it. It’s not his fault Stephen is so damn tall.

The apprentices waiting in the courtyard eye Tony curiously but make no move to ask Stephen what this obviously non-magical man is doing here.

Stephen goes to them, broad shoulders and narrow waist twisting as he walks, cinched so ridiculously perfectly by a wine-red tunic that Tony can’t help but think is a few sizes too small. Stephen throws one last smile back at Tony, a cross between amusement and satisfaction (but at what? The look of utter awe on Tony’s face? Did Stephen really expect anything else when he’s brought a tried-and-true science nerd into Nepalese Hogwarts?), then returns his focus to the apprentices.

Tony watches as Stephen greets them. They seem like they all know each other in passing, but there’s still a quick round of introductions before Stephen launches into the lesson and starts conjuring sparking sigils in the air. Like Pepper, Stephen is firm and confident, his shaking hands never hesitating between spells, and even without knowing if Stephen is demonstrating an amazingly difficult magical technique, Tony finds himself as mesmerised as the apprentices.

“Aren’t you setting up your instruments?”

Tony startles when he hears Wong’s voice surprisingly close to his ear.

“They’ll work without being unpacked. Is there something you want to say to me?” Tony says warily. It never hurts to be wary of light-footed sorcerers. He’s learned his lesson with Loki.

“When you get back to New York, make sure that this one,” Wong jerks his head in the direction of Stephen, who is transitioning to more dynamic spells that ripple in the air and arc through the courtyard to touch every pillar once, “actually sleeps.”

“Hang on, are you telling me that the man who’s been telling me that I need to sleep isn’t sleeping himself? But he looks so well rested and not like, uh, this.” Tony points at the dark eye circles that he knows he’s sporting.

“I have no doubt that his body is getting the rest it needs. But Stephen has a habit of escaping into the astral dimension to read while his body sleeps. He’s effectively been conscious for months by now—the signs are there if you know how and where to look.”

“Is it in how energy flows in his body?” Tony says, only half joking, because the air here feels alive in a way that air really, _really_ shouldn’t.

“Yes. His spiritual, mental, and physical energies are misaligned. I’ve let it go on long enough. Any longer and his control of spells will begin to suffer.”

“Have you talked to him about this?” Tony asks. “Because I don’t think he’s going to take medical or spiritual advice from _me_.”

Wong raises an eyebrow. “Do you think I would come to you if I haven’t tried and failed?”

“That still doesn’t explain why you think he’d take my advice if he’s ignoring yours. I have literally never channelled magic or even opened a single book on magical energy alignment in my entire life.”

“Trust me. He will listen to you if you express your concern. Did you know that he didn’t want to allow you into Kamar-Taj?”

“What? Why?”

“Because I implied that he would enjoy having someone to discuss the science of magic with. Stephen judges his worth by his proficiency as a protector against mystic threats. Nothing else matters as much. He thinks he’s been selfish enough and that his second chance should be fully dedicated to a cause bigger than himself. But he’s wrong. There is dedication, and then there’s mania.” Wong’s expression turns into something fierce. “Stark, I don’t want him to burn himself out. I won’t ask for much, only that you be annoyed at him when he makes poor decisions.”

“I haven’t slept properly in five days,” Tony deadpans. “I can’t even decide what’s good for myself. What makes you think I can decide for him?” This is a legitimate concern. Tony doesn’t want Wong to put his trust in him only to find that Stephen hasn’t eaten in a week because Tony didn’t think to remind him.

“The very same thing that led you to bring him food after a bad day. You care.”

“Well so do you! You wouldn’t be sneakily saying any of this behind Stephen’s back if you don’t.”

“I am driven also by my duties to Kamar-Taj. I may unknowingly demand more from him than he can handle. But you are not of Kamar-Taj. You can interfere when you see that something is draining him. Unlike me, your priority can be Stephen—I suggest you make it so.”

“I can’t put him above protecting the Earth either,” Tony says because it’s true. He doesn’t know how to put _anything_ above that, even if he sometimes wishes that someone else can take over the worrying for him. “I want to, but I can’t. And I have other responsibilities as well.”

“I’m not asking you to ignore everything for Stephen. I’m asking you to put Stephen before his duties, because Stephen won’t. He can’t help others if he burns himself out. That’s why Stephen needs you, his soulmate.”

Tony blinks. “That is the least romantic explanation of soulmates I have ever heard that somehow still manages to be sentimental.” It kind of makes sense, actually. The saying is that soulmates complete each other, but nobody ever said _how_ they complete each other. Maybe being Stephen’s soulmate means making sure he doesn’t throw away and neglect parts of himself for his goals, even if Tony’s definition of neglect is closer to most people’s idea of having a death wish. Maybe Tony is here to help Stephen become a complete person on his own. Now _that’s_ the sort of soulmate he can be for Stephen. “I’ll do it.”

“That is all I ask. If Stephen’s casting spells that you aren’t sure are good for him, here’s my number.” Wong hands him a slip of paper.

“Thanks,” Tony says even though he can’t tell any spells apart, much less good from bad, and pockets it. He already has Wong’s number, but he’s learned that sometimes people don’t want to hear that he’s acquired information about them through possibly less-than-legal means. “Are you staying to watch?”

“No. I have duties to attend to and Master Hamir to speak with. And I believe Stephen already has all the appreciative audience he could ever desire.”

As Wong nods and leaves, Tony finally sees that the courtyard is crowded with people, both sitting and standing, watching Stephen demonstrate the steps of a spell as he describes its principles. Is Stephen some sort of hot-shot sorcerer even though he’s only been practising for just over half a year? It figures that Tony’s soulmate would also be an overachiever in multiple disciplines.

Tony edges closer to a woman next to him who is dressed in a grey outfit that most of the people here are wearing and tries to sit down beside her. The Cloak very carefully flares out behind him and refuses to let Tony actually touch the ground until he’s collected the edges of the Cloak and bundled it up in his lap. It squeezes him lightly in approval.

“What’s up with the audience?” he asks the woman.

She jumps a little with surprise. “Are you new?” she asks in accented English, barely looking away from the lesson. “One of the Masters can see you in the main sanctuary to help you get situated.”

“No, no. I’m here with Stephen.”

“Master Strange?” She tilts her head to appraise Tony. Then, her eyes light up. “You must be his brother! Welcome to Kamar-Taj.”

Tony laughs. “I know the facial hair is misleading, but we’re not actually related.”

“Oh, soulmate, then?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Only soulmates and families are allowed to visit. You don’t look old enough to be his father or young enough to be his son. What brings you here today, Master Strange’s soulmate?”

There is a certain thrilling novelty in being known by his relationship to someone else rather than as Tony Stark. “I’m taking readings about magic to figure out how it works. But do I really need a reason to want to watch that?” Tony adds jokingly, gesturing at where Stephen is sparring with an apprentice, tunic pulling tight in all sorts of amazing ways that frame the muscles of his arms.

“Yes, Master Strange is very good at the mystic arts, isn’t he?” she says, clearly admiring something else entirely. To be fair, Tony would probably do the same if he knew even the least about magic, although he doesn’t understand how she isn’t also arrested by how Stephen’s shoulders fill his tunic. “I came to Kamar-Taj before him, but I am nowhere near his level. Being a Sanctum Master takes a lot of skill. Most people never attain it.”

Tony feels a misplaced swell of pride for Stephen’s accomplishment. “That’s why so many of you gather to watch his lesson?”

“Not really. Master Strange is good at breaking down spells, especially the difficult ones. He has helped us before he became a Master. Sometimes he gets impatient when we’re slow but he knows the theory so well that he can adjust to any level of comprehension. He’s amazing,” she says with an appreciative sigh.

“He really is,” Tony agrees, thinking of the phone call earlier that day, of Stephen talking him through an attack, of the thousands of deaths Stephen has endured and the billion that are in his future. The more he learns of Stephen, the more wants to continue learning about him, and the more he wants to take Stephen back to New York and introduce him to Pepper and Rhodey, to Peter and FRIDAY, to every single person on his list of favourite people.

Sometime later, Stephen calls for a short break and heads right for Tony, who finds himself suddenly studiously tracking the single drop of sweat slowly making its way down Stephen’s unbelievable cheekbones, highlighted to frankly obscene prominence by the climbing sun.

Stephen studies at Tony for a bit, then announces apropos of nothing, “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Tony says dryly. “Just what everybody wants to hear from their soulmate.”

“I didn’t notice it earlier because it was too dark, but your eye bags are hideous. Here, use these when you inevitably fall asleep.” Stephen does something with his hands that spark golden-orange and a pile of blankets appears. He places them in Tony’s lap. The Cloak bristles as if offended by its new competition and only settles after Tony brushes its collar haltingly to reassure it. What a weird piece of outerwear, but god help him it’s growing on him.

“You know, Wong told me you haven’t been sleeping properly either.”

“Oh, great, he’s recruited you,” Stephen says, and sits down next to Tony with a resigned sigh. A part of the Cloak lifts up from Tony’s lap to wrap itself around Stephen as well, having apparently forgiven Stephen for the blankets.

“Yup. Apparently Kamar-Taj is the one place where I’m not Tony Stark but ‘Master Strange’s soulmate’, so who am I to disappoint your adoring fans?”

“My soulmate, huh?” Stephen mutters. He reaches out to tug the Cloak more snugly around Tony, smoothing it down with a warm, trembling hand. “I didn’t realise you’d grown tired of being ‘Tony Stark.’”

“My friends never call me ‘Tony Stark.’”

Stephen’s lips slant up. “I know.”

Tony does roll his eyes this time. “You’re never going to let me live it down, are you?”

“Do you want me to stop? Because I will,” Stephen says. It’s only now that Tony realises that he doesn’t want it to stop. Everybody else, even Rhodey, would’ve allowed him to pretend that nothing happened because Tony makes a convincing show of not wanting to show his underbelly afterwards, but years of forced indifference is starting to wear on him. Perhaps he could allow Stephen this one privilege to remind him that he isn’t all metal.

“Someone’s got to be the insufferable friend, and I guess for me that’s you.”

“I promise not to embarrass you in front of anybody who really matters,” Stephen offers.

“Don’t bother,” Tony remarks with mock levity, “because then you’ll never be able to embarrass me.”

“I don’t under— _oh_.” Stephen’s mouth splits into a smile so bright it’s like staring into the sun. Maybe it’s his toothpaste, Tony thinks, because there’s no way a smile can be so brilliant without some assistance from extremely effective dental products. He’ll have to ask Stephen about it later.

“Yeah, oh,” Tony says, grinning too. “And I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

Meanwhile, the actual sun continues to rise overhead, and Tony is warm and smiling and contented and yeah, he won’t be disappointing Wong anytime soon. Because he wants more time for this, and he will do anything he can to make sure that nothing takes these sunlit moments away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The Cloak just wants them to be happy too.)  
> (If anybody's confused by the last bits of conversation between Stephen and Tony, I've done my best to explain it somewhere in the comments.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony sleeps in Stephen's bed. Completely platonically of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't had time to reread this before posting so if there are any glaring errors, do feel free to point them out to me so I can fix them.

There is something to be said about the brand of subtlety practised at Kamar-Taj—namely that it is not practised at all.

Stephen glances quickly at his watch. In the three minutes and fifty-four seconds since he’s approached Tony at the start of the break, he’s observed no less than _every single person_ in the courtyard attempt to look discreetly in their direction and fail terribly. It’s a wonder Kamar-Taj isn’t common knowledge by now. Disappointingly, none of them have managed to summon up the courage to actually ask about Tony instead of waffling around speculating among themselves.

Tony doesn’t seem bothered. In fact, he doesn’t seem aware of much, really. He’s spent the time mostly staring off into the distance and generally nearly driving Stephen to palpitations whenever his eyes drift unseeingly towards the direction of the sun. Thankfully, the Cloak is of the same mind as Stephen and it never fails to nudge Tony’s head back to face the courtyard when his eyes stray too far.

Four minutes and forty-five seconds.

Four minutes and forty-six seconds.

Four minutes and forty-seven seconds.

“Tony, I have to…” Stephen starts to say, but stops when he feels an unfamiliar weight on his shoulder. Looking down, he finds that Tony’s face is more or less pressed unceremoniously into his shoulder at an uncomfortable-looking angle, glasses askew and the small smile he’s been wearing since the end of their conversation mellowed into an almost imperceptible curve of his lips.

Ah. Asleep without assistance at last. He’ll be damned if he wakes Tony now.

“Make sure he doesn’t fall over, will you?” Stephen tells the Cloak quietly, gently lifting Tony’s head from his shoulder and allowing the Cloak to support him with its collar.

The Cloak ripples before settling, as if trying to fit itself more closely to Tony.

Stephen then takes one of the blankets from Tony’s lap and drapes it over his legs, ignoring the Cloaks indignant attempts to take over the role. “Focus on his head. That’s his prize possession,” Stephen says to appease it, then returns to the apprentices (who are doing a marginally better job of not looking curious than the newer ones) and his lesson.

\---

The lesson concludes with a pleasant lack of unwelcome questions (though not for a lack of questioning looks) so Stephen rewards their commendable restraint with a concise explanation.

“Yes, that’s my soulmate. No, you are not allowed to bother him. Class is dismissed,” Stephen says shortly, waving his hand to emphasise his point that they’re free to go. It some ways, teaching the apprentices is a lot like giving guest lectures to first year students at his alma mater—his audience is full of eager eyes and hungry brains, and often they won’t leave until they’re forced to.

As the apprentices bow and turn to go, whispering among themselves, Stephen muses that what he said will be common knowledge at Kamar-Taj by sundown. He should probably be more alarmed that an entire secret organisation knows about Tony now because they haven’t actually discussed if they would acknowledge their status in public, but from Tony’s offhanded mention of being recognised here as ‘Stephen’s soulmate’ instead of ‘Tony Stark,’ he assumes that Tony has already spoken with someone in Kamar-Taj about it and decided that he didn’t care if they knew.

Most people don’t bring up soulmates in casual conversation anyway so it’s unlikely that anybody would really bother him about it. The only way to find one’s soulmate for certain is to watch them die, which is understandably not the kind of memory any conscientious person is eager to dredge up.

Wong is waiting for him beside Tony (who is, miraculously, still asleep), and the first thing out of his mouth is good news. “Master Hamir has agreed to guard the New York Sanctum for a further three hours until noon here. Try to enjoy yourself during this time,” Wong tells him. Then he looks down at Tony, sound asleep in the secure hold of the Cloak of Levitation, and adds, “Or get some rest. Your room has not been reassigned.”

Stephen nods. Transferring Tony into an actual bed makes sense. It would also give Stephen time to centre himself after coming into contact with so many people all at once for the first time in a month. “Thank you.”

“I will have someone send up dinner for you,” Wong says, and leaves.

Stephen crouches down in front of Tony to fold up the blanket he laid across his legs, then scoops it up under one arm as he uses the other to wrap the Cloak a little more firmly around Tony. “Hold him tight,” Stephen says to the Cloak, “and follow me. Don’t let him bump into anything.”

The Cloak’s collar bobs up and down in a facsimile of a nod and it gently lifts off the ground, taking Tony with it. Stephen picks up the remaining blankets and casts a quick lightening spell on Tony’s heavy case before carefully folding his fingers around the handle and taking that with him as well.

His room isn’t far from the courtyard, and Tony barely twitches the whole way there. Stephen nudges the door open with his shoulder and ushers the Cloak in to lay Tony on the bed. Sunlight slants through the window, casting broken shadows across the room and lighting up motes of dust like specks of gold. Stephen’s always felt like it exists in a pocket of space that can’t be touched by the rest of the world, not even by Kamar-Taj. In fact, sometimes it even seems like he’s in a different time altogether, a world where scientific empiricism hasn’t taken hold, where the stars and moon feel close enough to touch. It is a place for him to gather his thoughts alone.

Having someone else in the room with him feels a bit like having everything shifted an inch to the left—unsettling but not terrible. Stephen could get used to it the same way he got used to hands that can no longer write after he found purpose within Kamar-Taj. Not bad, just different.

“You can let go of him now,” Stephen says, amused, when the Cloak simply lays itself over Tony after setting him down, but the Cloak stubbornly remains where it is. Stephen raises an eyebrow as he removes Tony’s glasses to place them on the desk, safe from the potential danger of getting crushed if Tony rolls over. “Suit yourself.”

He settles himself at the desk, opening a gateway into the library out of habit and reaching out to grab the first book he finds. (A hefty tome simply titled ‘Aegis’ that’s scribed entirely in Latin.) His body is used to a significantly later bedtime than nine, and, coupled with the sunlight filtering in through the windows interfering with melatonin production, he won’t be needing a bed any time soon. Which is a good thing, given that his bed is currently being occupied by Tony and a relic that refuses to let him go.

For a few hours, the room is silent but for rhythmic breathing and the slide of thick parchment pages being flipped. It is interrupted briefly when someone comes in with food, half of which Stephen sets aside under a stasis spell for Tony whenever he wakes. He did promise authentic Nepalese cuisine, after all.

Tony rolls over at some point so that he’s curled in on himself, hugging the pillow more than sleeping on it. Stephen, roused from his book by the sound of rustling sheets, tilts his head to look at Tony.

He looks different asleep than awake. Not younger or older the way some people are, just…mellower. Softer, almost, and smaller. His personality has a greater contribution to his presence than Stephen realised. It occurs to him that, despite how comfortable he feels talking to Tony, he hasn’t spent all that much time in Tony’s company. Their conversations are nearly all textual. There is an odd dissonance when Stephen tries to reconcile Tony’s face and voice—well known in mass media and instantly recognisable to many—with the man on the other side of his text messages.

Tony Stark is a public figure. His private life is off-limits and, truthfully, not the sort of thing Stephen generally cares about.

Yet somehow, one month on, here he is—texting Tony regularly and letting him sleep in his bed.

It almost doesn’t feel real. There’s Tony Stark, and then there’s Tony, and in between there are dozens of text messages and a phone call. Stephen doesn’t doubt that Tony can juggle these personas, that they’re all parts of a single whole, but then Tony’s had his entire life to figure out how these facets of himself slot together. Meanwhile, Stephen has never had to really deal with Tony Stark apart from the threat of expensive gifts.

Tony likes takeout and science and doesn’t like portals or falling. Tony worries about his friends and builds things for them. Tony is tired and asleep in Stephen’s bed because Tony is so _brilliant_ but also an idiot who thinks sleep is optional, and Stephen wants to call him Anthony all the time because he deserves to hear it from somebody who will be careful with his name.

Tony Stark is…Stephen doesn’t even know Tony Stark.

Oh, intellectually he knows that Tony _is_ Tony Stark. There’s no two ways about it unless Tony has a secret twin using his name to run a company. Tony Stark is Tony, but distilled and curated and then amplified. Highly intelligent, obviously, and utterly charismatic, just not in a way that Stephen has come to associate with textual conversations that drag on for hours.

Stephen almost didn’t recognise Tony when he saw him for the first time in weeks at the Sanctum earlier that day. And then Tony opened his mouth and it’s Tony’s words in Tony Stark’s voice. At the courtyard, it’s Tony’s fondness on Tony Stark’s face, and right now it’s Tony’s exhaustion in Tony Stark’s body (on Stephen’s bed).

When Tony wakes, Stephen would ask if they can video call once in a while. It wouldn’t do for Stephen to only recognise his soulmate in lines of text but not by his face.

Stephen only realises that something isn’t quite right when Tony’s breaths start coming more quickly, each exhale a harsher sound than the one before. Setting his book down and looking up, he notices that Tony is sweating and clutching at the sheets.

“Tony,” he says softly, edging closer to the bed to lay a cautious hand on his shoulder. The first (and only) time Wong tried to wake Stephen from a nightmare after the whole situation with Dormammu resulted in Wong getting thrown across the room. Whatever Tony is dreaming of, Stephen hopes that waking him wouldn’t end with him punched through a wall. “Tony, wake up. You are safe. I won’t let any harm come to you while I’m here. Wake up.”

Tony’s eyes snap open, wide and unseeing, every muscle in his body so tightly coiled that Stephen can see his pulse jumping in the unusually pronounced blood vessels along his neck.

“You’re safe. Kamar-Taj is protected by multiple wards. Some of the best sorcerers are here. I’m here. Nothing has happened. There is no reason to be afraid,” Stephen continues to say. Now that Tony is more or less still, Stephen slides his hand down from Tony’s shoulder, smoothing it out and running it along his back slowly and firmly.

It takes a while for Tony to regain enough lucidity to ask, “Where am I?”

“This is my room at Kamar-Taj. You fell asleep during the lesson.” Stephen offers Tony his glasses and then gestures at Tony’s share of food. “Are you hungry?”

Tony blinks. “Yes.” He blinks again. “Aren’t you going to ask about it?”

“You’ll talk if you want to. But I can make an educated guess—defending Earth comes with a price.” Stephen floats the tray over to Tony. “Eat. It’s still warm.”

Tony slowly sits up and stretches out a hand. The Cloak, now displaced, resettles itself on Stephen’s shoulders. “You know, I’m not convinced that I’m not still sleeping. This shouldn’t be possible.”

“And yet it is.”

“What’s your theory?” Tony says as he stares at the food, spoon in hand, unmoving. Stephen prods the tray closer to him.

“Local gravitational distortion?” Stephen suggests, and eyes Tony until he takes his first bite. “I’m not a physicist. I know how to do all these impossible things but not how to explain them in ways that make sense to any legitimate scientific body.”

“Tell me anyway.” Tony says

“There are minor spells that function based on intent rather than sigils. There is no structure to them—mystical energy simply responds. Sometimes, instead of commanding something to float, I think of disrupting the gravitational field around it, or I throw something and imagine applying a force in the opposite direction, or even just will the molecules in an object to move together, and the results are identical. I don’t think there’s one ‘correct’ way to make something float. But figuring out how my thoughts translate into actual physical consequences is beyond me and my resources.”

“Does removing your influence reverse the state of things?” Tony asks, taking a second bite without being prompted. That’s good. He’s finally engaging with the physical world.

“What do you mean?”

“If you reshape this spoon, will the change be permanent?”

Stephen experimentally does just that. The spoon in Tony’s hand twists and ripples until a delicate pattern etches itself into the handle, and then Stephen withdraws. The design stays. “There's your answer.”

Tony stares at the spoon, turning it over and tracing a finger along the new motif. “This doesn’t make sense,” he eventually says.

“You’ll find that not a lot does, in Kamar-Taj. I’ve learned to live with the level of abstraction required to trust in both science and the mystic arts.”

“No. That’s not it.” Tony’s eyes cut to Stephen’s, sharp and significantly more piercing than they should be considering how recently he’s just awoken. “Pangborn constantly drained energy to walk. If he healed himself, and if a change in state can persist beyond the initial manipulation, then there’s no reason to keep using magic after he’s been healed.”

And, suddenly, Stephen gets what Tony’s trying to tell him with a thrill that races up his spine. Tony’s brilliance in Tony Stark’s eyes, in _Tony’s_ eyes. “He treated the symptoms,” Stephen says breathlessly. “It wasn’t a cure. He used mystical energy to move his limbs and transmit sensations without actually healing his body. That’s why his condition deteriorated when his power was taken from him.”

Tony nods, a wildly electrified smile breaking across his face. If Tony keeps this up, keeps showing Stephen parts of himself that Tony Stark never shows anybody, Stephen could start reconciling his body with his mind. “A bug that needs to be patched over and over again isn’t fixed.”

Stephen can’t help smiling back at him. “And if I can manipulate objects on a molecular level, I can fix the cause. Permanently.”

“We can help both him and Rhodey.”

Stephen laughs. There’s a heady combination of exhilaration and excitement thrumming through his veins. Oh, it feels good to synthesise knowledge again, and he has Tony to thank for this. Despite his exhaustion, Tony’s mind is in _sparkling_ form. Stephen would love to see how it works, would love to know what sets it apart from everybody else’s. “Putting the human body back together is a lot more complicated than stopping molecules from moving, but it’s not an impossible goal to work towards.” Then, a sudden thought sobers him. “But even if we develop a treatment, it cannot enter widespread usage. It’s just not possible for us to help everyone. Kamar-Taj will not survive entering public consciousness. We are not ready. We may never be.”

Tony’s smile dims and he sighs. “Of course. But what about those who find their way here? People like you? Can you help them?”

“It’s best if you speak with Wong about this. I have very little say in how Kamar-Taj is run.”

“I’m going to choose to be optimistic. Kamar-Taj allowed Pangborn to return mysteriously healed. I don’t think you’ll turn away someone if they come to you to be healed.”

“I wouldn’t—Hippocratic Oath and all that. But I was thrown out of Kamar-Taj for a few hours before they took me in, so I don’t have the same faith that you do.”

Tony shrugs, and picks up a dumpling. “The only constant is change. And this is all speculation anyway. We’re still far from a proper cure, so there’s still time before any of this needs to be addressed. In the meantime, SI’s R&D department would still really love to pick your brain, and I have just the thing to make that happen even with you stuck at the Sanctum. Where is my case?”

“Next to the bed.” Stephen releases the spell that allows the tray to float when Tony moves to pluck it from the air.

Tony sets the tray on a side table almost warily, then rolls off the bed to haul his case onto it. It clicks open with a press of his thumb to the lock. “I’m surprised you’re okay with me being here in your room. You seem like you like your privacy.”

“I do. But you badly needed a bed and I like you enough not to just leave you in the courtyard.”

“I’m touched. I really am,” Tony drawls as he flips the case open. Stephen doesn’t recognise anything inside it until Tony digs out something that Stephen thinks is a phone, followed by a tablet. “These are for you. Voice-enabled and motion stabilised, capable of interactive holographic projections including a standard-size keyboard. I’m speed dial one.”

Stephen huffs when Tony winks at him. “Of course you are. You’ll spoil me yet, Tony Stark.”

“Only the best for my soulmate, defender of Earth.” Tony pats the side of the bed. “Come here. I’ll show you how it works.”

Stephen takes the half-step that separates him from the bed (and Tony) and sits. Tony is a warm, comfortable presence beside him, larger now that he's no longer asleep.

“Both come with a natural language AI that’s synced across these two devices. It’s just like Siri and Alexa, except better,” Tony tells him, leaning slightly closer to Stephen until their shoulders brush. He turns the phone on. “When I say that it has a natural language AI, I really mean it. You’ll need to give it a name, though. It’s one of a kind and it’s yours so I thought you should have the privilege.”

“What would you have called it?”

“I don’t know. Probably a backronym. I quite like those.”

“What does FRIDAY stand for, then?”

“Fastest Reliable Intelligent Dedicated Assistant Yet. Or she was when I created her. She’s due for an upgrade any time now.”

“That’s stretching the backronym a little.”

Tony shrugs. “You don’t have to have a backronym too. One of my AIs doesn’t1. It’s more important that you know how to activate your AI. It can guide you through setting up and using the phone. Just press and hold this button, and…”

“Greetings,” says a voice from the phone. It is distinctly feminine and notably more expressive than any other AI Stephen has interacted with so far.

“Hello,” Stephen says awkwardly when Tony indicates for him to respond.

“Voice pattern recognised. Hello, Doctor Strange. I would say that it a pleasure to see you except that my camera is currently disabled. Would you like me to call you ‘Stephen’ or is ‘Doctor Strange’ your preferred address?”

Stephen really shouldn’t be surprised by how much personality the AI has. It _is_ Tony’s creation, after all, and Tony is nothing if not exceptionally talented and bursting with personality. “Stephen is fine. Thanks for asking.”

“No problem. Shall I introduce the features of this device now?”

Tony finally speaks up, “Maybe later. I was promised a tour of wizard school and I am not missing it for the world.”

“Of course, Tony,” the AI says, then falls silent.

“The StarkPad works the same way too,” Tony tells Stephen. He hands the phone and tablet to Stephen, who receives them gingerly. It wouldn’t do to break such amazing technology so soon after they’ve been gifted to him.

“This is really impressive,” Stephen admits. “And about that tour, I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait. I’m due back in—,” Stephen checks his watch, “less than ten minutes. You should probably return home to catch a good night’s sleep too. I will be here regularly and you’re always welcome to visit. When you’re better rested, I’ll ask Master Hamir if he would guard the Sanctum for a little longer so I can show you around.”

Tony looks disappointed despite Stephen’s reassurance that he will get his tour eventually. “That’s as good an incentive as any to sleep, I guess,” he mutters as he snaps his case shut and follows Stephen out of the room.

“Don’t think I won’t check with Peter to see if you’re actually getting enough sleep.”

“For the record, I’m only allowing the both of you to get away with this because I know that you’re actually nice people really, really deep down.”

“That’s practically a compliment. I’ve had worse assessments of my person,” Stephen says frankly. And they were well deserved, too. Where he used to choose his patients based on the prestige treating their illnesses would earn him, he finds it hard to stomach the idea of turning away anyone who asks for his help now that he’s been on the other end.

Tony grimaces. “Sore spot?”

“A bit. I live in the hope that it will stop being one someday. But don’t worry yourself over it; I’m already getting there.”

Tony smiles at him. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t.”

The rest of the walk through the library and the gateway to the New York Sanctum passes almost instantly. Master Hamir meets them at the entranceway to let Stephen know that nothing unusual has happened before they see him off back to Kamar-Taj.

For a moment, Stephen and Tony stand at the doors that lead out into Bleecker Street. The light of the full moon pales in comparison to the street lamps, but it doesn’t detract from the gentleness of Tony’s expression when he looks at Stephen and bids him goodbye.

“Thanks for fulfilling my dream to go to Hogwarts,” Tony says, and Stephen hopes that somewhere in there there’s a ‘thank you for making time for me’ that Tony doesn’t give voice to that echoes Stephen’s own sentiment.

“Now you know that texting is difficult, call me sometimes,” Stephen says, because he wants to be able to hear Tony Stark speak and know that Tony, the Tony who has become his friend, is putting those words together. He wants to look at Tony Stark and see his soulmate. He doesn’t want Tony to just be words on a screen. “Better yet, video call. So I have visual confirmation that you’ve been sleeping and don’t look like death warmed over. I have a fancy new phone now. Might as well make use of it.”

Tony shoots Stephen a mildly amused look. “And you better not forget to sleep either or Wong will have my head when you accidentally turn one of your apprentices into a ferret or something. I’ll be in contact about that treatment for Pangborn and Rhodey. And also about the data I gathered today.”

A car pulls up outside.

“And my ride is here. Goodnight, Stephen,” Tony says with a smile before heading out and slipping into the backseat of the car.

It has been a good night, Stephen thinks.

The future promises to be even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Peter named the AI in his suit Karen, and, to my knowledge, it doesn't stand for anything. To be fair, neither does FRIDAY, at least not in MCU, but the way her name is properly spelled (F.R.I.D.A.Y.) makes it seem like it does. So I made something up.
> 
> I really need to stop ending chapters with them saying goodbye. There are only so many ways I can write this scene over and over again without boring anybody to tears.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is mutual affirmation that Tony and Stephen like each other, five days apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost decided to wait another week to update because I only had 500 words by Saturday morning and absolutely no idea where to take the chapter. I might come back to this chapter to add sentences and paragraphs to make up for my tragic 100 words per day rate during the first five days of the week.
> 
> This chapter reads mostly like a post-op amnesia fluff, but without the amnesia.

As eager as Tony is to get started on treatment development, he doesn’t know the first thing about neural regeneration. None of his degrees are in biology or medicine and, to be perfectly honest, Tony never really did have any desire to branch out into those fields until he had an electromagnet powered by a car engine installed into his sternum. Even then, his focus was less on how the body heals than how to chelate the palladium leaking from the arc reactor.

So it is with great necessity that Tony dives right into Wikipedia, which, despite Stephen’s disapproval, is more than sufficient for Tony’s purposes.

A handful of days after returning from Kamar-Taj, Tony calls Stephen to pose him a quick question, “Are you thinking morphogen1-directed regeneration or magical duct tape? I’m trying to whittle down my reading list.”

“Both,” Stephen says after a beat, possibly thrown off by Tony’s lack of a greeting. “You really don’t beat around the bush, do you? Cells aren’t six-piece jigsaws. I can’t put them back together even with the mystic arts unless I know all the parts, and I’m not sure that I do. Supplementing with the appropriate morphogens and allowing the body to respond to them may yield more physiologically correct healing. But before that, we need to reverse any fibrosis.”

“Fibrosis. That’s the scarring, right?” Tony mumbles as he brings up the last article he read that mentioned fibrotic tissue formation during wound healing. “Can you do that with magical scissors or is there a pathway that you need to trigger?”

“If I can learn to consistently manipulate cellular-level objects, extracting fibrous tissues shouldn’t be an issue. Even a competent surgeon could remove most of it with the right equipment.”

Tony sets aside the articles on fibrosis. If techniques for removing scar tissue are already available, then Tony can focus on the regenerative aspects of the treatment instead. “Do you need something to practise on? Model organisms?”

“I have two ruined hands. There’s more than enough nerve damage here for practice, don’t you think?”

“No,” Tony shoots down immediately. “You’re not experimenting on yourself. You could make things worse.”

Stephen chuckles, low and not entirely a happy sound. “Surely not by much.”

“You could lose function entirely. I won’t allow that,” Tony insists. He’s not letting another friend get (even more) injured on his watch. He’s already failed so many people—Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, even _Peter_ 2—and he will do his damnedest to avoid another or die trying.

“What’s your solution? I don’t have access to a lab.”

“Am I allowed to send you a crippled mouse?”

“Once again, I don’t have access to a lab. There are protocols for animal testing, and I think you’d break almost every single one of them if you do that.”

“I’m going to talk to Wong about this. He can’t keep you locked up in the Sanctum forever like some bizarre modern-day Rapunzel.” He gestures for FRIDAY to make a note to remind him to text Wong in a couple of hours. “Master Hamir seems like a reasonable guy. If he can give us another three hours every other lesson, we’ll make good progress.”

“I’ll speak with him about it,” Stephen promises.

“Good, good,” Tony mutters, and pulls up an article on spinal cord architecture.

An hour later, he only realises that Stephen is still on the line when he requests FRIDAY to call him so that he can ask another question and Stephen replies immediately, sounding amused, “I’m still here.”

Tony startles, sending a pen skittering over his workbench and flattening a palm over his suddenly racing heart. “ _Why_ are you still connected?”

“I thought you had another question when you didn’t hang up. Then I wanted to see how long it’ll take for you to notice you didn’t.” There is a strange quality to the way Stephen says that. It takes a while for Tony to recognise it as _fondness_ , which is embarrassing because that wasn’t exactly in short supply during the time they spent at Kamar-Taj, and dear god what kind of sad existence did Tony lead before this if fondness is so hard to recognise?

“Well I _do_ have a question now, if you’ll deign to listen to it instead of entertaining yourself at my expense.”

“Go ahead,” Stephen says. He still sounds insufferably amused.

Tony keeps the call open for the rest of the day although most of it is spent in silence, devouring article after article on PubMed as he listens to Stephen flip pages and practise magic. It’s nice to have company in his workshop again on weekdays, even if Stephen is just an unobtrusive presence on the other end of a phone call.

At a quarter to seven, Stephen finally speaks again. “I’m leaving for Kamar-Taj. I don’t suppose you’re joining me?”

“Not today. I can’t get to the Sanctum in time unless you open a portal, and I am _not_ walking through one of that.”

“All right. Don’t forget to sleep, Tony.”

“I won’t. I know for a fact that _you_ know that Peter sends me bedtime reminders because the two of you are in perpetual cahoots these days. Go impress your adoring public in peace.”

“Don’t worry, I still like you better,” Stephen says with a smile that is painfully obvious even though Tony can’t see him, and hangs up before Tony can do anything more than splutter.

Seven words. Seven more words that Tony doesn’t know what to do about. Stephen has a terrible habit of saying things like that—simple things that somehow make Tony feel important beyond his contributions to the tech industry—and then just leaving Tony hanging. Is this a soulmate thing? It feels like a soulmate thing. Although, granted, it’s probably also a didn’t-know-Tony-when-Tony-was-a-genuine-asshole-who-hated-any-mention-of-emotional-vulnerability-because-Stark-men-are-made-of-iron thing.

Stephen is so honest about liking Tony that, sometimes, Tony wonders if it’s all a lie. It wouldn’t be the first time. People have tried all sorts of things to get another sound bite out of him or earn that coveted spot in his (admittedly rarely used) bed. The friends he does have express their concern in more practical ways like running his company or backing him up when the government tries to possess his Iron Man suits. They never tell Tony that they like him.

And for the longest time Tony appreciated that. Until Stephen, Tony was utterly contented with how his friends look out for him.

It’s funny how a few words that, on their own, have no power at all managed to make Tony so viscerally aware of his heart pounding away behind the scars where his arc reactor once was. Words are nothing without action to back them up, action that Pepper and Rhodey and Happy have time and time again demonstrated to the point where Tony never doubts that they care for him so, so much. They don’t have to say anything because Tony already knows where he stands with them.

Perhaps it’s the novelty. It’s being told that he matters, and then being swaddled in a sentient cloak and laid on a bed even though Tony would’ve been perfectly fine sleeping upright; words matching actions in a way that never happened with other enhanced beings that he knows. Not Steve, not Natasha, and sometimes not even Bruce. They spent nearly every waking hour on his property and called themselves a team, yet here they are, four years on, scattered like a meteor burning up into a million tiny pieces as it enters the atmosphere.

Tony really hopes that he can convince Stephen to hang around for longer than four years.

\---

Calling and forgetting to hang up happens a couple more times, and by the fourth Tony decides that he might as well abandon any idea of hanging up entirely until Stephen leaves for Kamar-Taj or Peter’s clockwork-precise reminder to sleep forces the both of them into bed.

Like the first time, he and Stephen don’t talk much while Tony plays catching up with the ridiculous number of articles that Stephen recommends to him for ‘light reading.’ Mostly, they leave their phones sitting nearby and Tony asks for clarification every half hour or so. Occasionally, Stephen makes a comment about a spell that might be useful and they spend a few hours throwing theories back and forth.

When Tony receives a call so early in the morning that he can’t even keep his eyes open yet, he accepts it expecting a perfunctory good morning and a brief description of a new spell that will surely prevent him from falling back asleep. He hears Wong’s voice instead.

“There’s been an incident.”

Suddenly, Tony’s blood runs cold and sleep is the last thing on his mind. A quick glance down at his arm reveals a fresh patch of scarred marks. “Where is he? Is he all right? Can you get me to him?”

“Stephen is resting at the new York Sanctum. He is physically unharmed but spiritually drained,” Wong says, frustratingly inflectionless. “I can’t open a gateway to you unless I know where you are. A photo will suffice.”

Tony doesn’t even hesitate to snap a quick picture of his room and send it to Wong. His world has narrowed to a fuzzy spot of awareness and he barely registers the sizzling of a sparking orange portal opening in the middle of his room seconds later, which is retrospect is a good thing since he might not even have managed to stumble through it if he had the presence of mind to freak out about the portal.

They’re in a bedroom.

“Should he be here? Doesn’t Kamar-Taj have some kind of infirmary?” Tony says as he crosses the room on legs he cannot feel to where Stephen lies, deathly still, the Cloak laid across him.

“Our healers cannot do anything for him. Tampering with the spirit, even with good intentions, is dangerous.”

“Who did this to him?”

“A rogue sorcerer.”

Tony hisses. “Mordo?”

“Stephen told you about him?”

“He told me about Pangborn. Mordo came up,” Tony says tightly. “Can he still use magic? How much longer will he be out?”

“It’s hard to say, but from what our healers can tell, no more than a day. Mordo did not successfully take his power away from him. Stephen should still be in full possession of his abilities.”

“Good. Who’s guarding this place if Stephen’s—,” Tony swallows, trying to find the right words, “—not conscious?”

“Me,” Wong says. “I won’t allow him to come to more harm. You have my word, Stark.”

“Thank you,” Tony says curtly.

After Wong leaves the room—Stephen’s room, judging by the pile of esoteric books and a cup of cooled tea on the side table—Tony collapses into an armchair next to the bed. It smells like the same oddly crisp air that’s everywhere in Kamar-Taj, and Tony takes a deep breath of it as he drags it closer to the bed.

Stephen manages to look pale even on white sheets.

Tony lays a hand on the bed and edges it closer to Stephen until his fingers brush the back of Stephen’s hand, the Cloak lifting off a little so that Tony can have just that bit more access to him. It’s warm, but just barely. He can’t even pretend that Stephen’s just asleep because nobody looks so drawn when they’re sleeping. Tony gently turns Stephen’s hand over and presses his fingers to Stephen’s wrist for good measure. The pulse is strong.

The colour of Stephen’s skin against his, flesh to flesh, flesh to mark-stained black, reminds him that Stephen will be all right. He still has many more deaths to endure before it’s permanent.

Tony pulls his hands back.

He feels a bit silly now. The fact that his skin is still mostly black should be a comforting assurance that whatever life-threatening situation Stephen just experienced isn’t life-threatening enough to have him stay dead. That eventuality will be a while yet.

But, god, if this is what it feels like every time Stephen has a brush with death even though Tony knows that Stephen won’t be dying for good any time soon, Tony is in for a very rough future. On one hand, he really wants to hate Stephen for doing this to him, but, on the other, it takes a stupidly good sort of person to keep at it despite the pain and lack of recognition, and Tony won’t change that part of Stephen even if he could.

Besides, it’s unreasonable to ask Stephen to weigh Tony’s failing cardiac health against the rest of the world. There’s no competition. The rest of the world will always win, and Tony won’t have it any other way.

All he can do, really, is help to make the world just that little bit more worth saving in any way he can. New prostheses, charity fundraisers, _Iron Man_. He was already doing that before Stephen came into his life. Now he just has another motivation.

Tony taps his watch. “FRIDAY, have the MK47 deliver a change of clothes and my phone. Use stealth mode if possible. Let me know before it arrives so I can let it in.”

“Yes, Boss.”

While waiting for the suit, Tony buries his head in his arms, suddenly exhausted. It was probably best that he didn’t try to force himself to stay in the workshop today. He’s not sure he’ll be capable of much while he’s sick with worry even though he knows—he _knows_ —that Stephen will be all right. He has the marks to prove it.

There is a divisive discourse to be had about free will and how the marks deprive people of that, but right now Tony couldn’t care less about free will. He just needs Stephen to pull through.

The suit comes, and with it gloves and a jacket to cover up his skin. After so long fully covered in public, it’s uncomfortable showing this much skin even in the relative privacy of the Sanctum in the company of two people who have already seen his arms.

“Sentry mode,” he says to the armour, and it settles into position with a good vantage point of both the window and the door.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. Wong comes in with lunch—authentic Nepalese food—around noon but it remains largely untouched. It is only when Stephen starts to stir as the sun begins to dip below the horizon that the world comes back into focus again.

“Tony,” Stephen mumbles. He looks surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”

“You asshole,” Tony says, and he’s relieved enough that he doesn’t even try to hide the affection that turns the insult into what almost passes for an endearment. “You died again. You weren’t supposed to die.”

“Did the people who saw you light up like a Christmas tree bother you?” He’s surprisingly coherent for someone who’s just awoken up after dying more than once. And he’s also smiling. Why is Stephen smiling? Did some wires get crossed in his head? Tony personally never wakes up in a good mood, especially not if he was recently dead.

“What? No, there wasn’t anybody around. I wasn’t even awake yet.”

“Ah. Sorry for worrying you, then,” Stephen says, still smiling. Is this a side-effect of spiritual exhaustion? Tony will have to check with Wong.

“I’m not worried about you, I’m pissed off at you!”

“Mm. If there wasn’t anybody around, why are you so agitated?” Stephen asks, apparently entirely unconcerned for his own health when there are such interesting topics to ponder like Tony’s completely justified displeasure.

“Because we had an agreement!”

“The point of which was to avoid having others know that I’m dying.”

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. At least he knows that Stephen hasn’t lost any of his mental acuity if he’s observant enough to run Tony into a corner, even if Tony can’t say that Stephen has his priorities entirely in order. “Fine. I was worried.”

Stephen smiles, dopy and floppy and all sorts of stupidly soft. “Thank you for worrying.”

“It’s part of my job description, isn’t it? Bedside vigil is probably expected of ‘Master Strange’s soulmate.’”

“You didn’t have to. But you did.” Stephen really shouldn’t sound so happy while he’s bedridden. “That’s really good of you.”

“I think you’re confused about who has the tougher job here. You’re out there, dying a crazy number of times so that the world goes on spinning as it hurtles around the sun in the vast nothing of space, and all I have to do is park myself next to your bed afterwards.”

“The difference is that you had a choice.”

And Tony can kind of see where Stephen is coming from. The consequences of not saving the world are dire—they’re literally world-ending. Tony would’ve chosen to fight in a heartbeat too. But whether Tony sits at Stephen’s bedside makes almost no difference at all in the grand scheme of things, and, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, Tony would make better use of his time working on one of his many projects.

“Yeah, well, my choices weren’t between dying multiple times and probably not dying at all. Between you and me, I think I got off easy.”

“Easy is relative.”

“I really wish you’d just take the compliment.”

“And I wish you’d just accept my gratitude.”

Tony huffs. “I’m not going to argue with a recently dead man. Do you want me to call Wong in?”

“Wong’s here?”

“He’s guarding the Sanctum in your stead.”

“Then leave him to it. Just let him know I’m fine on your way out.”

“All right,” Tony says, pulling up his phone. “Are you hungry? It’s almost dinner time and you haven’t eaten. There’s a great Thai place down the street and they do takeout.”

Stephen makes a sound that Tony interprets as ‘yes please I’m famished and sick of Kamar-Taj food,’ and says, “Get the basil chicken if they have that.”

They do, in fact, have basil chicken. Tony makes sure to get enough for Wong as well in case he too wants something other than food from Kamar-Taj for a change. When Tony sinks back into the armchair again after placing the order, Stephen says, “Really, thank you. You didn’t have to come and you didn’t have to stay. But you did anyway.”

“I know. But the other option was to tinker alone in the workshop.” Tony pauses and looks straight at Stephen. “I like you better.”

And he does. The work can wait.

Stephen’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles, still dopy, still floppy, still stupidly soft.

Yeah, the work can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Morphogens are molecules best known for helping to direct cell, tissue, and organ growth in embryonic development when present in specific combinations and concentrations. [[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogen)] [Here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4408553/) is an article describing mechanisms of nerve injury and recovery that I personally found fascinating. (I majored in biology but my specialisation isn't neuroscience so please take anything I say about neural regeneration with a grain of salt.)  
> 2 Rhodey fell in CA:CW, Pepper fell in IM3 but survived thanks to Extremis, Happy almost died in an explosion in IM3, and Peter was trapped under a collapsed building in Homecoming.


End file.
